Shift
by Ashantai
Summary: "I wasn't born a compassionless shrew. I used to be sort of nice, you know." - Leah Clearwater has been through a lot in her life, and as the only female werewolf in the La Push pack, her story is unique. This is an exploration of Leah's past and present.
1. Prologue

When I was a little girl, my father often sat on the porch that overlooked the ravine behind our house, watching the sunrise. My mother would be gone to work by this time, and I was left in charge of my little brother until our ride to school arrived. My father always looked pensive on these mornings, as he gazed at the mist lifting its cloak from the land, rising straight up in billowing tendrils of cloud. He liked to watch the darkness drain from the earth, slowly to be replaced by tongues of pink and orange light. We had a large enough property that these mornings were mostly silent, aside from a sudden eruption of birdsong or the distant, mournful call of a train.

On one of these quiet mornings, I had managed to get my brother ready early by some miracle of luck and timing. He was small then, perhaps only six, and normally at that age it was a trial to even negotiate what he would eat for breakfast, or if he would put on his clothes. But on this day, he had taken all of my suggestions and coaxing at face value, and we were ready to go perhaps a full half-hour before our ride was due to pick us up. I took advantage of this opportunity, and took my baby brother by his chubby hand to lead him outside, where my father sat sipping a steaming mug of coffee. I sat down in a big wooden chair and my brother crawled into my lap, curling into my chest for extra warmth. I held his soft little body in my arms, his fine, dark brown hair tickling the underside of my chin, and together the three of us gazed out at the ravine. Then my father started to speak.

He was still a young man then, with more bounce in his step and in his voice than he would have later in life. But even when I was a child, he commanded the respect of the community, and I knew he had a presence that was special. I was proud that he was my father, even if he was sometimes distant from us. But no matter how much I might have missed his attention at certain times in my life, one thing was always true: when he spoke, I listened, and it was the same for my brother. He weaved his words together like magic.

He told us that, long ago, our people could leave their bodies at will and float on the wind, using the breeze to travel over mountains and through fields, darting between the trees of this land as an eagle soars through the sky. They called upon the animals to help them in times of need, and through the sacred partnership they held with deer, raven, fox, and wolf, they could drive their enemies from their lands without risking a drop of their own blood.

My father said that, eventually, our people became closest to one single animal above all the others- the wolf, that cunning and majestic spirit of the forest. My father said that some wolves weren't animals at all, but that they were a kind of man, the descendents of those members of our people who, preferring that form, had forgotten how to change back into human beings. They moved through the world, more intelligent than any beast, and they were to be respected as family, because that was what they were to us.

My brother and I listened, enrapt, as he explained that the potential for shape shifting still slept in the Quileute blood. He said that perhaps one day, if circumstances were right, people in our own community would hear the wolf howling in their blood. If that happened, they would remember how to change form again, to run in packs and protect the land from our enemies. If the wolf cried from your blood, he said, it couldn't be ignored. He told us that to be like this would be something sacred, a calling greater than that of a healer or even a chief. He made it sound fascinating, exciting and romantic.

I was too young to realize that he was talking to my brother.


	2. Chapter 1

My whole body was weak from fever. It burned through me, beating in my temples as my body temperature rose and rose. When she could, my mother hurried between my bedside and my brother's, whose hair was also plastered to his face in sweaty lumps. The sponge baths she gave me were the only thing that tied my mind to my body, cooling me long enough to feel like it was bearable to exist on the same plane as my burning flesh. My father had forbidden her from taking us to the hospital, and my mother's trust in him was absolute. I was sure I was dying.

Seth had come down with the fever first, and I'd been worried about him as his temperature crept slowly upward, showing no signs of stopping even when the thermometer gave us unbelievable numbers. My father seemed to have some idea what was going on, and assured us we shouldn't worry. He instructed us to keep Seth comfortable for the time being, but do nothing more. Then, when Sam started visiting the house daily, I left Seth's care to my mother and escaped as often as I could. Despite the fact that Sam and I had had a messy breakup, I knew he and my father's relationship had survived it, but I didn't like him at the house and I wasn't going to stick around for the awkward conversations he was sure to start with me.

Then the fever hit me, too. It came on quite suddenly, while I was out with some friends shopping for clothes. I was barely able to make it home before my body gave out, and the next thing I knew, I was in my bed with my father standing over me.

His frown was one of concern but there was something else there, too- fear maybe, and confusion. It was hard for me to focus on his face, because his hair was made of tiny beetles and his tongue left purple stains in the air when he spoke to me. The fever was boiling my brain, making me see things, but they felt so real. I had to take deep breaths, staring at a blank corner of wall near the door, to understand his words as English as he said, "Leah, you need to stop this. Seth needs to make this journey alone."

I couldn't speak. I wondered how he could think I was doing this on purpose? I knew what I saw in his eyes now, and it _was_ fear. But was he afraid for my life, my health, or afraid that I was trying, somehow, to steal my little brother's spotlight? I will never know. But, hallucinations or not, I knew this: if I could have put out that fire that was roasting me from the inside out, I would have. In a second. His words made me angry, as most things seemed to now; the fever had affected my emotions as well as my senses. When I was conscious, everything irritated me.

Then one day, the fever broke. Just as suddenly as it had come on, it lifted off me like one might take a boiling pot of water from a stove. My mother was at work, so I knew it was just me, my father, and Seth in the house. I wanted more than anything to go outside. I got out of bed ravenous. I hadn't eaten in days, and even when I had been able to, all I could tolerate was ice cream, which had melted on my burning tongue before I even tasted it. Now I craved something much more substantial, like red meat, my body yearning for iron. But even standing made me dizzy, so I waited, feet firmly planted on my floor, one hand on my headboard to catch myself should my balance betray me, my whole body swaying as though in a heavy wind.

Finally, I took a tentative step, but it was too much- my vision reeled, my stomach heaved and I fell to my knees, gasping, using everything in my power not to throw up or pass out. I heard the creak of my door and my father stood there, not offering me a hand of help or even a word of comfort. After what seemed like forever, I managed to get to my feet again, leaning heavily on the bed for support. I looked at him, and he stared at me.

"Dad," I said, hardly able to believe I had to ask. "Can you help me?"

"No…" he whispered, his eyes wide as he looked at me.

"Dad!" I said again, exasperated. Couldn't he see my knees were shaking? Couldn't he see I'd lost more weight than was healthy in five days, and that I could barely stand, that my clothes were so stained with sweat you couldn't tell what colour they had once been?

But instead of offering his only daughter a hand of help, he said, "I'm going to get Sam. Stay here."

"What?" I couldn't believe this. I glared at him, and I felt my fists clench with more strength than I would have thought possible given my condition. "Don't you dare get Sam, I don't need him," I snapped.

"You have no idea what you need," he answered, still wearing that strange confused-scared-disbelieving expression on his face. It pissed me off, so much that I actually screamed in frustration, my breath coming in deep, angry sounds that felt like they were going to rip through my chest. I watched as my father, a brave hunter who I'd never known to be afraid of anything, turned on a dime and ran from our house.

I snapped. Never had I been so angry. It was like a bottle turned upside down, spilling out all my rage, and never would it empty. I grabbed my bedspread and ripped it from the bed, tearing my sheets. I swept my arms across my bookshelves, sending books and knickknacks cascading to the floor. I kicked the walls, leaving little pockmarks of fury in the drywall. My body shook with anger, but destroying the room barely comforted me at all.

Then, something happened. I don't even know quite how to describe it. The shaking in my muscles intensified until I thought they might burst through my skin; it was like they were all trying to escape from each other simultaneously. The heat this shivering created was threatening to pull me under again, into that scary place of fever and death from which I had only just barely escaped. I felt as if my body was splitting, only not anywhere in particular, but everywhere. Every muscle seemed to break apart from every other, and I could feel them contorting and stretching under my skin. It didn't hurt, but it was so terrifying that I fell to the floor screaming, trying to pry them from between my bones, as if I could extract my muscles and put them aside until they behaved.

Suddenly, I couldn't feel them anymore. I couldn't feel anything- not my body, not the cool, solid wood of my floor, not the air on my face. My screams had gone silent, and the only impression I had was of an overwhelming burning sensation inhabiting my bones, spreading outward like wildfire. I stayed there on the floor, not moving, as if I could stop my own death with the force of my will. It seemed to work; the fire abated, and though a small part of me was still angry, I felt mostly calm.

Gingerly, I tried and failed to stand several times. Finally I settled for all fours, since it seemed to be the only way I could move. The room seemed wrong, everything at a funny angle, but I ignored it. I wanted to go outside. I wanted to feel the sun on my skin and know that I was still alive. My head still felt hot and fuzzy, and everything seemed unreal, but I was determined. My bedroom felt suddenly claustrophobic to me, too small, and I wanted to get outside on the grass and feel free again. My inability to feel my own body made it difficult to move, and I stumbled, first into my bed and then into the wall, as I tried to crawl toward the door. Finally I reached it, but I found I couldn't line up my body properly to go through the doorway. First I slammed one shoulder into it, then the other. The anger was building again and I growled out my frustration, surprised at the sound my own throat could make.

A shadow passed over me and I looked up quickly, expecting my father to be back, finally, to help me. But it was Seth that stood there, and he was staring at me with the widest eyes I'd ever seen on my little brother's face. I was surprised to see that he looked well, healthy even, and I wondered when the fever had broken for him; I'd obviously been too out of it to notice. Or maybe we were both dead. I tried again to stand, but I couldn't seem to get my feet under me.

"Leah," Seth said, his voice a little shaky but also soothing, like he was just a tiny bit afraid of me. "Just hang on, okay? It's going to be alright."

I tried to smile at him, I tried to open my mouth and speak, but I couldn't. I couldn't tell him that I was okay, that I felt better but I just need his help so I could stand up. Frustrated, I sat down and just looked at him, hoping he would understand what I wanted, but he didn't even approach me.

… _but who is it?_ I jumped as I heard a voice so close I expected the person to be there when I turned, but there was no one.

_I don't know._ A different voice this time. Again I whirled toward the source, but there was nothing. My heart quickened as I looked around desperately, not wanting to believe that I was hallucinating, that I'd gone crazy. Seth crouched just outside my doorway, watching me, but he said nothing. I could feel the panic rising in my chest and I backed up as if I could escape it, but I felt myself hit something so I turned. It was my vanity, a little desk and chair my mother had picked up at an antique store when I was twelve and obsessed with makeup. Now it was mostly just for show, but the mirror on top of it still came in handy.

My eyes rose to that mirror so I could see if I looked flushed, or pale, to see if I could assess my own health the way my mother had taught me, but instead I froze, staring into the mirror. I knew then that I was very sick. I was hallucinating for sure, not only hearing voices but seeing things as well.

I could see Seth in the mirror, and I could see my room looking normal, but I couldn't see myself. And looking out of the mirror at me was a huge gray wolf, its dark brown eyes fixed right on mine, its breath coming in short gasps that matched my own. Quickly I turned my head, just to make sure, but all I saw was my room, the doorway, Seth. No wolf. I turned back, and just out of the corner of my eye I saw the wolf do the same.

I opened my mouth to speak, but then I saw the wolf draw back its lips and bare its teeth, not in a threatening way but just like it was… opening its mouth. My eyes widened. So did the wolf's. I shuffled backward, and so did the wolf. For the first time, I looked down at my body and yelped. Gray fur, giant paws capped with razor-sharp claws that had made scratches on my hardwood floor… I was truly insane. I looked behind me and saw that I had a tail, and what was more I could _feel_ it too, like it was really there. Finally I understood why I hadn't been able to stand up. I was already standing, but on four feet. My hands were gone. I knew now that the fever had driven my senses right out of me. I backed up so fast, as though I could find myself again if only I moved quickly enough. My back came up against the side of my bed, stopping me.

_Careful, dude,_ came one of those voices.

_He's going to trash the room,_ came another. They weren't really voices, there were no sounds, but I could feel each speaker as different. Images flooded my mind every time they spoke, nonsensical images that floated around in my head.

I still had enough of my mind to suppose that I was hallucinating myself as something from folklore, a story I'd heard many times as a child, about our famous forefather Taha Aki and his pact with the wolf. I hoped that this semblance of reason meant I wasn't totally beyond help.

"Leah," Seth said from behind me. "It's going to be okay… promise." Then he quickly stood and left me there. I tried to stay calm. It was so hard not to move, not to try to escape this. I tried to talk myself out of it, thinking over and over, _This isn't me, I'm not a wolf, this is stupid, come on, snap out of it._ But my body stayed as it was.

_That's not going to work, _came one of those voices.

There seemed to be two distinct speakers, and sure enough the second one chimed in with, _Who are you, man?_

But I didn't answer. I didn't want to tempt my insanity by encouraging them. Instead I just sat there, not moving, hardly daring even to breathe.

After a short time, another voice suddenly cut through my mind, and I had no doubt about who this one was. _Okay, everyone else changes back- now,_ Sam's voice said, not his voice but his presence, so obviously him that I could actually hear the words as if he had spoken them aloud._ Don't overwhelm her._

_What?_ one of the voices answered, seeming absolutely stunned.

_Did you just say 'her'?_ the other one said almost at the same time, the voices almost overlapping in my mind.

_Change back,_ Sam repeated, his voice so firm that I felt a sudden compulsion to do what he said, even though I couldn't. Then suddenly, the other voices withdrew from me, and I was left alone. Well, almost.

_This is not happening,_ I thought to myself, still unable to speak. _I am not so crazy that I have to spend the rest of my life with Sam Uley in my brain._

_You're not crazy, Leah,_ Sam answered me, gently.

_I think it makes me more crazy that the imaginary voices in my head are telling me I'm not crazy,_ I answered dryly, then internally kicked myself for responding to him, even it was through my thoughts. Then, suddenly, I realized that he was gone.

I heard the front door open, expecting Seth to hurry to my room, having found someone who might help me, but it wasn't Seth at all. Sam stood there, in nothing but a pair of cut-off jeans, a style he'd become very fond of shortly before our breakup. He stood in the doorway for a moment, just staring at me like he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing.

"Your dad thought your symptoms were psychosomatic," he told me. I had a vague idea what that meant- basically, that I was faking. Sympathy pains for Seth, or a plea for attention. I glared at Sam and let out a low growl, and he stopped just outside my bedroom door, as Seth had done. "Leah, don't be scared," he said gently, the way you might talk to a frightened cat that is stuck in a tree and wanting desperately to come down, but at the same time fully intent on clawing its rescuers.

I didn't know what he didn't want me to be scared of, but I stopped growling at him, frustrated that I couldn't speak, even though I knew the first thing I would probably say to him would be 'Get out.' I didn't want Sam of all people to see me like this. Not my ex-boyfriend, a man who had once loved me, then dumped me without pretense or explanation, shattering my heart into a million pieces, many of which were still missing. Where was my father? I felt like I had been abandoned, and I wished my mother was home.

Then, without pretense, Sam unbuttoned his jeans and let them drop to the floor. It was nothing I hadn't seen before, but his actions puzzled me. A moment later I realized the reason as before my eyes he dropped low to the floor, then lunged upward just a little. But where Sam's toned, nude form had been, a black wolf sprung from his skin, even bigger than I was. It was so fluid and sudden that I could easily have blinked and missed it. I stared at him, and what struck me was the eyes- they were Sam's exactly, and when he looked at me it was as if he was still human.

_You're not crazy, Leah,_ the thought came to me again, in Sam's gentle voice, as the black wolf gazed at me with those too-human eyes.

I felt like crying. I felt like screaming, like running outside on my own two feet, but I could do none of those things. Mostly I wanted to turn back the clock of my life until I was that happy girl again, that normal, safe teenager in love. Not this monster, with a monster ex-boyfriend. I felt like curling into a tiny ball, folding my limbs and changing into a boulder, something hard and impenetrable. Something that could protect itself from the world and all of this insanity that filled the air around me, choking me until I couldn't breathe.


	3. Chapter 2

When I was still that normal teenager in love, things were easier. I thought we were so strong… but no relationship is immune to hardship, and I had no idea what was looming on the horizon for Sam and me. Our ruin was not, as I imagined, a single instant that was simply too much, snapping the rope which held us together. Rather it was a series of moments, small things that increased and multiplied like bacteria, threatening to break us down. But even with all that, we could have survived, if not for the one thing that neither Sam nor I could have predicted… but that came later. The first indication that something was wrong was almost innocent: he stood me up, for the first time in our relationship. And I was pissed.

When he didn't come to see me that night, I was angry. He had never forgotten me before, and we'd had plans… plus, we hadn't even had a fight. He'd been sick with the flu for almost the entire past week, and this was supposed to be our catch-up date. I was a little hurt that he had stood me up, that he'd embarrassed me by having me wait for him in our favourite restaurant, finally admitting to the waitress that he wasn't going to show. But I was more irritated than worried... such was the trust I had in him.

But when I went to his house the next morning and found his mother, worried and uncertain, her hands trembling as she told me Sam hadn't come home last night at all, a sickening feeling started to creep up my spine. I could tell she was trying to pretend that there was a perfectly good explanation for this; that her son, who had slept in that house every night from the day he was born, might have just decided not to. But I knew different and so did she.

Just last week, right before he got sick, he had brought me a flower for no reason, slipping it onto my desk at school just before classes started. He was a grade above me, but the tribal school has only a couple hundred students, so we mix constantly. The single red rose, its water trapped in a tiny teardrop vase, sat on my desk that entire day, much to the jealousy of my friends. Sam wasn't exactly popular, but he had an aura of mystique about him that attracted attention. He was seen as a rebel, a bad boy, but with a good heart.

We had known each other almost our entire lives, but somewhere around the middle of my ninth grade, we suddenly got a lot more interested in each other. After a couple of months of flirting and dancing around our attraction, he asked me out. And after that, my fate was sealed to Sam Uley's. I felt like the luckiest girl on the planet to have a boyfriend like him.

It was because of this history that I knew something was very wrong. Him not coming home was reason enough to worry, but that paired with standing me up the night before made me terrified that something truly awful had happened. Sam wasn't a big risk-taker; he enjoyed the occasional cliff-dive like the other boys and he sometimes went hunting in the woods, but never alone. I couldn't imagine where he could be, but wherever he was, I knew he had to be found.

La Push is a very small town, and word travels like lightning here. Add to that the involvement of the police, and soon most of the community had volunteered to help locate Sam and bring him home to his mother- and to me.

The police chief was a friend of my family, which helped. Charlie and my father often went fishing, so when I called for help, we were already on a first-name basis and he knew me well. The search party for Sam ended up numbering almost a hundred people, as they set off in earnest, combing the beach and scouring the woods. Charlie forbade me from participating, so I was left sitting in Sam's living room, holding his mother's hand and praying for the first time in my life.

They didn't find him, and after three days, the search was called off. I moved through those days like a zombie, hardly noticing the people around me, ducking into the bathroom at school as often as possible to cry. Every day after the bell rang to release us I wandered the forests that ran for miles beyond our small community, calling for Sam until my throat was raw.

I imagined him dead, imagined him drowned in the ocean or mauled by a bear, perhaps fallen into a hunting pit or had his leg devoured by an iron trap. It was winter, so I imagined him frozen, cold and shaking, dying of exposure or hypothermia out in the woods. Everything I imagined was worse than the thought that came before, and my dark theories kept me up most nights. But I knew I wasn't the only one imagining scenarios. Rumours had started bubbling through the Rez about Sam, and they cast him in a much less innocent light than my own.

Sam's father had left him and his mother when he was very young. He had been a drinker and a drug-user, and people knew that those things could sleep in the blood and rise up again in the children of alcoholics and addicts. Sam had gotten into more than his share of fights at school, mostly to refute just these kinds of theories, but a lot of people thought that's what had happened to Sam. They always fell silent as I passed by.

Unlike Sam's, my family was very respected, and no one wanted to hurt me; but I knew they all thought I was better off without him. No one had approved of our relationship, and that too had kept me up nights, wishing that people could forgive Sam for the sins of his father and all the heartache that Joshua Uley had wrought in his life. And now I feared that he had died with everyone assuming he was just like his father, a failure and a degenerate who left the woman he claimed to love without even an explanation. But I knew better.

He was gone two weeks. I had given up by then on my own personal investigations through the woods, and for the last few days I'd been visiting his mother every day after school. I enjoyed sharing a cup of tea with the only other person that still held out hope for Sam's safe return, the only other person that, like me, believed he was a victim instead of a criminal in all this.

Apparently, I narrowly missed his homecoming. Within about ten minutes of my leaving the house, he walked through the front door as though nothing had happened. His mother fell to the floor in gratitude before pulling him into her arms and making him swear he would never do that to her again. Then she called me, but I wasn't home yet, so she left the message with my father that Sam was home and I should come straight back.

When I arrived home, my father was waiting for me in the living room. His dark brown eyes looked troubled, and I hesitated as I sat across from him. There was no sign of Seth, and my mother was at the clinic.

My father looked at me and said, "Leah, do you know how important our history is?"

"Yeah," I said slowly. "Of course I do."

"Sometimes men have experiences that change them forever," he told me. "Experiences that aren't meant to be shared."

I thought he was talking about himself. I thought he was talking about the purification ceremonies and spirit dances and all that stuff that the tribal council loved to warn us against forgetting. "What happened, Dad?" I asked.

"Sam Uley came home today," he answered simply. "About twenty minutes ago."

I stared. I thought my heart would burst as it sped up in my chest, and at first I didn't know if it was panic or joy. I started to stand up, but my father took my hand.

"Leah," he said. "Wait."

But how could I wait? How could I delay another moment when the man I loved was alive against all reason, when he had walked with his own two feet through the door of his house? How could I linger here, knowing that all my horror dreams of injury and death had been nothing but fear? I wanted to see Sam immediately, to throw my arms around his neck and kiss him and never let him go away from me again. How could I wait?

"Dad, I have to go," I said. This time he let me stand up.

"Just remember," he called to me as I hurriedly pulled my jacket back on and shoved my feet into my shoes. "Some trials are meant only for those who go through them."

I ran from my house, sprinting to my car and throwing myself into the driver's seat. I missed the ignition twice, then finally slipped the key in with shaking hands and started the engine. The drive to Sam's house normally took about ten minutes; I made it in three. Barely parking my car before I abandoned it in the driveway, I ran to the house, not bothering even to knock before I burst through the door, already calling his name.

I didn't see Sam. His mother approached me, seeming nervous. "He's in his room," she said. I ignored her worried eyes and hurried to his bedroom, the room that I had visited almost every day for these past two weeks, to cry into his pillow and feel close to him. Quickly I pushed the door open, hardly able to contain my excitement or the huge grin on my face.

He stood in the centre of his bedroom. He looked like he was trying to remember something, or like he needed to find something but had no idea where to start looking for it. I was taken aback at first- his hair, which he had kept just long enough to brush his shoulders for as long as I could remember, had been cut short. He was also dressed oddly, wearing nothing but a pair of what looked like board shorts- not a style he would have normally gone for. But I didn't care what he looked like. He was healthy and alive and I felt as if my prayers had been answered.

"Sam," I whispered as I closed his bedroom door behind me, reaching out tentatively to take his hand. It took him a few moments to look at me, but when he did his eyes told me that he'd been wandering in a desert, and I was a cool glass of water. He wrapped his arms around me, crushing me to his body, and it seemed like he never wanted to let me go. I never wanted that either, so I let him hold me, surprised at how warm his skin was despite his seasonally inappropriate outfit.

When he said my name, he said it almost like a plea for help. I rubbed my hands over his back, which somehow seemed more solid than it had been before, or stronger. His arms around me, too, seemed more muscular. I could feel his heart beating in his chest through my own small frame, and for the first time my relief faded enough that I started to wonder where he'd been. Why had he cut his hair off, and why did he seem so strange and out of it?

Sam pulled back from my embrace just enough that he could look me in the eyes. He stroked my face with his hands, threading his fingers through my hair as though he could anchor himself to me through that act. His eyes frightened me; behind his love for me I saw immeasurable sadness. I laid my hand on his cheek, amazed at the heat that was emanating from his body.

"Where were you?" I whispered, but he closed his eyes, tightly, against my question. "Sam-" I started, but he closed his lips over mine. His tongue pushed its way into my mouth and found mine, and as I responded he let out a low groan, only it sounded more like despair than passion. He backed me up against the wall quickly, so fast I would have hit my head had his hand not cradled it at the last moment, as he deepened the kiss, pressing his whole body against mine, capturing one of my breasts with his free hand and squeezing. His actions felt strange to me; the way he grabbed at my body, it was as though he was feeding some deep need that was desperate to touch me. This was a side of him I'd never seen; our lovemaking had, since it started just over a year ago, been gentle, slow, still young and full of tenderness and wonder. And always in a bed. Mostly foreplay, with sex always being the grand finale. But now he reached immediately for the button of my jeans with one hand as his other started to undo his own pants.

I pushed him away from me, twisting out from his grasp and going to his bed, gasping at the heat of him, of my own response to his burning lips and hands. He didn't move for a long moment, and I just watched as he took deep, steadying breaths before following me. I thought he seemed afraid as he sat down next to me, not looking at me.

"I missed you, too," I said softly, fearing that I'd hurt his feelings. "It's just... well, your mom's right out there." I didn't want to admit that his urgency had made me a little nervous. Usually we had sex at his house, but that was because his mother was more likely to be out than my entire family. We hardly ever did it when she was home, and when we did I insisted on absolute silence. I didn't believe he was capable of that right now, and I still wanted to know what had happened to him, even if my body was craving his touch, not having had even the pleasure of holding his hand for nearly three weeks, let alone anything more.

"I just… want you," he whispered. "Please. I love you, Leah. I need you… God, you're so beautiful." He reached for me again.

But I shook my head and caught his hands in mine to stop him. "Sam, where were you?" I asked again.

He glanced away so quickly I didn't even have a chance to read the expression in his eyes. Finally he reached for me and grabbed me around the waist, pulling me into his lap. I straddled his hips, laying my head on his shoulder, and I breathed deeply into his neck. I could smell the forest on him, moss and pine, so strong it seemed embedded in his skin. His hands were under my shirt, tracing light, nonsense patterns on my lower back. The warmth of his hand raised goose bumps everywhere he touched, and I couldn't help but get a little turned on. I kissed him gently, but he returned it with an intensity I wasn't ready for, so I pulled away.

"Sorry," he whispered, kissing my cheek, the curve of my jaw, the underside of my chin. He seemed frustrated, but also lost, confused even. It was like he was trying to use my body as some kind of handhold, a familiar refuge where he could pause and find himself again. I was very tempted to let him, but something stopped me.

It was his eyes- when I looked into them, I saw a hunger I had never seen before- not the superficial insistence of a horny teenage boy, but a patient, persistent need that looked like it might never be satisfied. I wasn't afraid of him, but that look stopped me from giving in to what we both wanted most: to touch each other after this long absence from touching, and to learn, through a language only our bodies knew, all the things that might have changed.

When I made it clear he couldn't have me, he didn't do anything for a long moment. Then he pushed me off his lap, not roughly but certainly quickly, and got to his feet. He clenched his fists and paced to the other end of the room, where he stood, looking like he wanted to punch the wall or scream- maybe both. I was shocked. I had known Sam to, occasionally, become angry about something, but mostly he was very levelheaded, and certainly not violent. I think he took pride in his calm temperament. But now I took in this raging, shaking version of my boyfriend with disbelief, and I was completely at a loss of what I should do for him.

"Sam," I said, my voice shaking a little with real fear for the first time since I'd learned he was alive. "Where were you?"

It was the third time I'd asked the question, but he still didn't seem to want to answer me. I could read the hesitation all over his body. Finally he took a deep, shuddering breath and unclenched his fists before turning around to face me again. He sat down once more on his bed, taking my hand. His skin felt like it was on fire, but he seemed fine, clear-eyed and healthy, so I just imagined that I was cold.

"Lee-Lee," he whispered his special nickname for me, stroking the backs of my fingers slowly. In every movement he made, every look he gave me, I sensed his desperation. But I was seventeen then, from a happy home, never left the Rez. What did I know about heartache? How could I help him? I had no idea what to say. So I said nothing, I just pulled him into my arms and cradled his head in my lap like a child. I ran my fingers through his thick brown hair, trying to get used to the closely cropped style he wore now.

"You don't have to tell me," I said softly. "I know you will, when you're ready. I'm just… I'm happy you're home, Sam." He turned his head so he could look at me, and there was such relief and love in his eyes that I was sure I'd said the right thing. I didn't know then that he would never tell me.

Then I saw the tattoo. Now that he was curled sideways into my lap, it was obvious. I held my breath as I touched the black ink that had been etched into the side of his right shoulder. It was beautiful, intricate and detailed, with two wolves facing each other, like mirror images. I could see their faces, even their tongues, and their claws and tails. I knew all the artists on the Rez by name, but I couldn't pinpoint who had done this work. It wasn't quite the right style for any of them. I wondered if that meant Sam had been somewhere far away, maybe in Seattle, or on another reservation for some reason, with the Hoh maybe, or the Makah. But why?

He saw me looking at it and followed my gaze. He seemed to grimace at the tattoo and for a moment I thought maybe it was still fresh and my fingertips on the ink hurt him. But no; it wasn't that. He didn't like it. Why on earth would he have it, then? Another mystery.

I let out a short sigh, but I said nothing except, "I like it. I didn't know you were into wolves."

"Leah," he said softly. It sounded like he was going to continue, but he said nothing more, and the silence stretched between us. I felt, suddenly, like crying. I wanted him to take me into his confidence and tell me everything, so I could share his burden and make it my own, to lessen the load of whatever awful thing he was carrying. I was so naïve then, so stupid. But my heart was in the right place, with Sam, where I believed it belonged.

I forced myself not to cry. Instead, I gave him what strength I could, through my eyes and touch, trusting that I was doing the right thing, keeping his head above water until he could recover from this. I assumed that it would pass, that he would come to terms with whatever horror he had encountered, tell me everything, and my love and acceptance would cleanse his spirit and give him peace once again. I still believed that love, in all its beauty and virtue, could conquer all.

I didn't realize then that the enemies you cannot see are always the most dangerous. And blind faith is just that- blindness, dragging you down into a deep, dark place, where something terrible is bound to be waiting for you.


	4. Chapter 3

After Sam came home, the Rez exploded with gossip. In my optimism I had hoped that his homecoming would put an end to all the rumours of drug use and alcoholism, infidelity and cults. But I had to admit: it was hard to find him innocent when he didn't even try to explain himself. Sam acted as though he wanted nothing more than to forget those two weeks, to behave as if he had never been gone. I could let him do this, because I loved him. I could put aside my own worries and anxieties to be there for him, because I trusted him. But everyone else took his silence to be the same as guilt, and whispers followed us wherever we went.

I lost some friends during this time, but the ones that mattered stayed close, and I stayed close to Sam. I decided that if I couldn't help him by being the person he confided in, then I could certainly be there for him in other ways- mainly, as a buffer, or a distraction, from all the people who wanted to paint him as the enemy and me as the misguided girl who didn't know what was good for her.

Did I know what was good for me? I certainly thought so, at the time. At that point in my life, I trusted Sam more than I trusted myself sometimes. He had never hurt me; not physically, not even emotionally. He was good to me, sweet and caring, attentive and loving. I still counted myself as lucky.

But within a short time of his arrival back on the Rez, things started to get more difficult between us. Though he was careful about letting me down, he seemed unable to stop the occasional last-minute cancellation of a date, and more than once I caught him in a lie about where he'd been at a particular time, usually at night. He even forgot my birthday.

My frustration grew and multiplied under the influence of my fears. I kept giving him the benefit of the doubt, but he would give me nothing in return. We started fighting more, and even when I swore to myself that I wouldn't start an argument, more often than not it happened.

Despite all of this, I still had faith in us. I didn't see our relationship as going downhill; I saw this as a momentary lapse, a rough patch to get through before we would be back on track once again, together. Yes, Sam was different, he'd changed- I could see that. But wasn't love supposed to survive change and hardship? Wouldn't I want him to stand by me if I had gone through something awful, too? So I stayed.

One day about a month after Sam had come home, I was surprised from my math homework by the sudden sound of his voice. Attuned to his distressed tone even though I couldn't hear his words, I got up from the kitchen table and hurried toward the front door. I was surprised to see Emily standing there, looking at Sam with an expression I couldn't read, somewhere between disbelief and repulsion. And on Sam's face- anguish, confusion, even terror. Their body language, too, was strange; Emily seemed to be in the process of backing away from him, while Sam's hand was raised, extended towards her.

"Emily," he whispered, and I was shocked at the naked heartache in his voice. It was how he often said my name after a particularly bad fight, when I'd hurt his feelings and he wanted nothing more than to make up. "Please…"

"Sam?" I spoke up doubtfully. They both jumped, and their heads snapped in my direction. The guilt in Emily's eyes was so apparent that it spilled over into her face, which flamed bright red. Quickly, without even a look in Sam's direction, she stalked from the room, anger in her step. I turned to my boyfriend but his eyes were elsewhere, gazing after Emily with a longing that made my stomach churn. "Sam," I said again, sharply. The anger was rising in me faster than I could contain it, even if I wanted badly believe that I had misread what I'd just seen.

"Leah," he answered softly. It was like he had to drag his eyes away from where Emily had just stood in order to look at me.

"What was that all about?" I asked, just barely stopping myself from snapping the words at him.

He gave me this strange look, a look that frightened me, a distraught expression that made dread creep through my heart. I knew then that nothing would ever be the same for us again.

"What's going on?" I asked again, softer this time, my voice gentle.

"Leah…" He trailed off. "I… I don't know what to tell you."

"Just tell me the truth," I whispered. "Please?"

"I can't," he answered, gritting his teeth for a moment. "I wish I could."

My eyes filled with tears but I tried to blink them back. "What was going on with you and Emily just then?" I asked, trying to make my words non-judgmental.

"Nothing," he said flatly, and I could see so plainly that he was lying.

But I didn't want to believe it. I couldn't hold back my tears then, and they squeezed out of my eyes and fell hot down my cheeks. Sam didn't move for along moment, but then finally he stepped towards me and pulled me into his arms. But his heart didn't seem into it.

I pulled back angrily and swiped at my tears. "Don't hold me unless you want to," I said harshly.

He let out a long breath. "It's not that," he answered softly. "Lee-Lee… I care about you. I do. But…" He fell silent.

"But?" I whispered, closing my eyes hard against the word.

"We can't be together anymore," he said bluntly.

My eyes flew open. I couldn't breath, couldn't speak, couldn't believe this was happening.

"Sam," I breathed, his name ripping painfully from my throat. "Please, I don't understand."

"I know," he said gently, and I heard the tears in his own voice. "And you never will." He reached for my hand but I jerked it away, even though I wanted nothing more than his touch. "If I could change this, I would," he whispered. "In a second. I would love you with all I have, for all my life, if I could. Forever, Leah. I thought we would make it..." He trailed off, shaking his head like he couldn't even believe his own words.

Those words broke my heart; right there, I felt it cracking. How easy it would have been if he had said he despised me. How simple his hate would have been for me. "But- but why can't you?" I choked out. My whole body was shivering as I struggled to stay calm in the face of my anguish. I thought if I let one tear slip out, or if I let myself really feel his words in my chest, I would fall to the floor and never be able to rise again.

"Lee-Lee," he whispered. I let him hold me then, and I clung to him, sobbing into chest. His arms wrapped around me as I cried, choking on my own fear, my disbelief that this was happening. "You will never know..." His voice was thick with his own tears. "… how much I loved you." His use of the past tense froze my heart. He added, "If I could split myself in two, I would."

After a long moment, I could speak again. "But why?" I whispered. "Where would the other half go?"

He didn't answer me, and the truth was, I didn't want him to. I'm not proud of what happened next. He let go of me, but I held tight to him, not willing to let him go. The way he tenderly tried to remove my arms from his back was almost painful. Maybe some crazy part of me believed that if I kept holding him, he would change his mind about breaking up with me, come to his senses and realize that he still loved me.

Or maybe in some deep, raw part of my soul, I knew that this was it. I knew that if I let him go now, we would never again hold each other in the way I craved, we would never again love each other with our bodies, or weather the storms of life in each other's arms. We would never go to college together, or come home to the Rez to improve our people's lives, or get married on First Beach under the stars, and I would never see my body swell to roundness, carrying his child. I felt as if I was swimming in an ocean of loss, drowning in all these things I would never have. And the reason I was drowning? The only thing I could come up with was that Sam had thrown me to the sharks. Without pretense or explanation, he had abandoned me to a life I had never imagined: a future without him.

I thought of the last month and instantly regretted everything I had said or done. Yes, we'd been fighting, and the few times he'd tried to get intimate I had put him off, too angry and afraid to let him touch me, but had I known this was coming… I would have taken him to my bed for that entire time. And now I faced the prospect of never being with him again, never feeling his touch on my body, never sleeping with my head curled into his chest, his soft breath against my cheeks. I would never again wake beside him, to a gentle kiss pressed into my temple or against the side of my neck. Had I driven him to this? Was this my fault? What other conclusion could I draw?

Finally, he successfully unlocked my arms from around his waist and stepped away from me. I stood there, swaying just a little, my legs shaking, so cold I thought I would never be warm again. Never before had I had such a physical reaction to emotional pain; I felt sick with fear, with helplessness, with the knowledge that my world was crashing down and I could do nothing, not even run for cover. I felt his gaze burning into me. He seemed to be searching my eyes, desperately, for something.

His hand came up and gingerly touched my cheek. I stood there, holding my breath. I wanted him to kiss me, and I didn't. But I let him, only because I realized it would probably be the last kiss we ever shared. I wish I hadn't. The kiss was strange, and his lips felt foreign on mine. The passion and intensity of every kiss we'd ever shared before was lost, and I felt as though I was kissing my brother. He seemed to feel it too, and grew frustrated, pulling back quickly and glancing away from me. I stood there, feeling ravaged, and it hurt so much to know that that would be my last impression of his lips. I knew about falling in love, and I remembered that instantaneous light switch going on when I had fallen for Sam Uley… but I never realized falling out of it was possible too, and just as quick. Yet somehow, he had. And the way he had kissed me, it was as though we were strangers. I couldn't look at him.

Finally, he spoke. "If I was in charge of my own life, you would be the most important thing in it," he whispered, and I could hear in his voice that he was really crying now, but I still couldn't bring myself to raise my eyes. "God, Leah, please… be happy." And then he left me there.

But how could I be happy? He was everything to me, and without him, I had nothing at all.

* * *

Emily was in my bedroom, sitting on the side my bed facing the window, waiting for me. From her posture I knew that she had heard everything. I looked at her like she was foreign to me, not my sister-cousin, not my best friend, but a thing unknown to me- a potential enemy, a traitor in the skin of someone I loved. But could I believe that?

She turned when she heard me walk through the doorway, my sobs coming in little gasps, and when she stood and came to me, she threw her arms around me and hugged me tight. I had no energy to resist this comfort. I needed her, needed someone to be with me in this moment. If I was alone, I thought I might do something drastic, not because I wanted to die but because I wanted, just for a little while, to place my mind away from my body, so I could be free of my heartach. I didn't want to feel anything anymore, or to think.

"Leah," she whispered as she held me close, holding my weight up as I collapsed into her embrace. She sat us down on the bed without letting me go and said, "I'm so sorry."

"I don't understand this," I cried, my voice high with disbelief. "How could this happen? What did I do?" I saw her grimace, just for a moment, but she tried to hide it. I couldn't let it go, though. I pushed her. "What? What is it? Tell me!"

She took a deep breath and let it out again, slowly. "This isn't your fault, Leah," she said finally.

"Yeah, and how do you know that?"

Again the hesitation, but my eyes like daggers forced her to speak. "Last month at the bonfire, when you introduced me to Sam…" She trailed off.

"What about it?" I prompted. I remembered what she was talking about- the bonfire on First Beach, the first time I'd seen Sam in a few days, because I'd been spending all my time with Emily. I also remembered splitting off from them shortly after I introduced them, to say hello to a friend, and when I came back Emily had been edgy and uncomfortable. Later she had told me that Sam had given her the creeps and I'd been hurt, but tried to hide it. I'd apologized for him, saying he hadn't been himself lately, but now I wondered what had really happened.

With a sigh of resignation, Emily said, "He came on to me, Leah."

"What?" I couldn't believe it. I had never known Sam to even look at another girl while he was with me, let alone this. "You must be wrong."

"No, he was pretty forward about it," she said sadly. "That's why I was so angry when you came back… I was so pissed at him because I knew how much you loved him. I never expected him to be that kind of guy."

"He's not," I protested, my voice small. "He's never cheated on me."

"Are you sure?" she asked, but no matter how gentle she could make those words they stung like a knife in my heart. I didn't answer her, so she added softly, "It wasn't just a one-time thing either, Leah. He's been to the house a bunch of times since then… he always shows up as soon as you go out. Just now you walked in on another attempt of his to get me to leave here with him. To talk, he says, but I don't trust him. The way he looks at me…" She shuddered.

I tried to hold it together, but I felt like I was breaking apart. The tears spilled over with my disbelief and I sobbed into Emily's arms. She kept apologizing, over and over again, but I didn't blame her. For a moment, yes, I had wanted to, but the truth was, I needed her too much. I couldn't afford to drive a wedge between us.

"Leah?" a small voice spoke up from the doorway, full of uncertainty. I raised my head to see my brother standing there, his eyes wide in concern. "Are you okay?"

"No," I answered heavily. He took a step toward me but I waved him off with my hand. "Just go away, Seth," I said. When he didn't move, I snapped, "Go on! I just want to be alone." I regretted yelling at him almost instantly, but there was nothing he could do, and I didn't want him to see me like this.

He glared at me for a moment, then looked to Emily, his eyes full of questions. "Sam and Leah broke up," she said gently.

Hearing her say the words made them real, and I let out a strangled cry, burying my head in her shoulder once again.

"Oh," I heard Seth's reply. In his voice I could hear his distress for me, and also his disappointment. I knew how much he liked Sam, so I felt guilty for his loss, too. After a moment more of him hanging around in the doorway trying to figure out what he could do for me, he left, closing the door behind us. He knew Emily was the one I needed, and where I was he couldn't follow me. I felt better once he was gone. I couldn't let myself grieve fully if I was worried about scaring him.

What kind of person must Sam be, if he could flirt with my own cousin while I stood just outside hearing range? I knew _my_ Sam would never do that. So where had he been, and what had changed him so profoundly? Was it true that he'd gotten mixed up in drugs? Did my love blind me to that, to his struggle with addiction?

But no. Even though I wanted to slap a label on this mystery and call it solved, I couldn't. Even after everything Emily had told me, I believed that Sam's demons were something much more sinister than the simplicity of drug use, only I couldn't imagine what they were. And my explanation for him trying to cheat on me… I thought it must be a frustrated response to our increasing fights, our growing apart. I made these excuses for him, forgiving his every action with elaborate alternatives, because I still loved him. But in doing so, and because he had left me with no other target, the only choice I had was to blame everything on myself.

* * *

**Author's Note:** I just want to say that I know Leah isn't a terribly popular character, but I'm really happy that there are some readers for this story. Those of you who are reviewing every chapter so thoughtfully really make my day, and I'm so happy to have you on this journey through Leah's life with me... I really like her as a character, and I'm enjoying exploring her just for myself, but to know there are readers like you along for the ride is a great feeling. Thanks! Hope you stick with it and keep on motivating me with great reviews. :-)


	5. Chapter 4

I couldn't stop grieving, not for a long time. Never had I known such tears. Hot and thick, they poured from my eyes until they were red and puffy, and everything in front of me became blurry. For all I knew, days, weeks, and months passed in this river of grief. The moon could have gone dark, waxed full, then waned to nothing again and I would still have been crying. I was not one to despair over my problems, not one to let go of the things I believed in or wanted with all my heart… but when those things included another person, and that person _had_ given up, what then?

I had been so sure we would make it. Yes, things had gotten worse and worse over the last month. He had grown even further apart from me, withdrawn, become secretive and moody. But I didn't lose faith. I had supported him, believing that, in time, he would be able to share his pain with me. I thought we had all the time in the world to get through this. How could I know he had his eyes on my cousin instead?

Is that why it ended? I couldn't believe it was because he actually had feelings for Emily. There was a reason Emily and I were like sisters- we were so alike. I thought maybe in her he saw some misguided image of a chance to start fresh with someone as close to me as he could get, but without all our baggage. But even that theory cut me to the core. I couldn't understand why he didn't want to work things out with me. I had always thought that all we would need on our side was love, and with that we could get through anything. I couldn't believe how wrong I'd been.

I couldn't believe he'd ended us, ended all our hopes and dreams and conversations about college, marriage, and children. His explanations- no, his excuses- had been pitiful. He had given me no reasons, no good ones anyway. Nothing I could accept as real. And yet he didn't want me. I had done everything to make him feel safe and loved even when there was clearly something very wrong going on in his life… but it hadn't been enough. And when he left he took the light from my life along with him. Now I was left with nothing but an obsession over trying to figure out the exact moment when he had stopped loving me.

I sobbed into my pillow until I thought my throat would burn away. After three days, I still hadn't changed out of the clothes I'd been wearing when he dumped me. I also hadn't eaten, and I'd barely slept. It could have been a year for all I knew of time.

I was not this kind of girl. I didn't spend days in my bed, worrying my mother, scaring my little brother, sobbing until my pillow became soaked in my own misery. I didn't get hung up on heartache or disappointment; I carried on even when things looked bad. But had I ever seen anything worse than this? I had finally met the thing that could knock the wind out of me, and I thought I might never learn how to breathe again.

Emily was frustratingly persistent. On the evening of that third day, a slice of light fell across my face and my pupils contracted as I jerked my head under the blanket. "Go away," I said firmly. My father, mother, and brother had all obeyed this order at various times over the last couple of days. They hadn't given up, but they were waiting. But not her. She ignored my wishes instead, and crawled under the blanket with me.

"Leah-beah," she whispered into my hair, a childhood nickname that sounded stupid on her adult lips. But it made the tears well up again, and she seized her chance to wrap her arms around me from behind and hold my shaking body close to hers.

"Emily," I whispered. "This can't be happening."

"I know," she whispered back, this sister I'd never had. I couldn't resist her comfort the way I could resist my parents or even Seth, and so I rolled over and curled into her chest, soaking her shirt with my tears. I felt bad that she had to deal with this; her visit here was supposed to have been fun. Now she was left taking care of me with one hand while fending off the advances of the boy who had broken my heart with the other.

"Leah-beah," she said again. "Why don't we get up?"

"I can't get up," I whispered. The idea seemed astronomical.

"Just to the living room," she prodded. "We'll watch a movie."

"I don't want to go out there. I don't want to deal with everyone."

"Your parents are out," she said gently. "And Seth is at a friend's house. It'll be just you and me… I bought chocolate ice cream. They say it fixes a broken heart."

My tears welled up again and she held me as I sobbed. I couldn't imagine that this could ever be fixed. But I let her get me up, I let her wrap me in a robe and cart me out into the bright light of the living room, sit me in front of the television, where she put on some comedy I can't remember and set to work braiding the strands of my dirty hair, weaving in beads of glass she'd made in her own workshop at home. I let her mother me, and I had to grudgingly admit that I felt better afterward… but nowhere near normal.

* * *

As the days passed, I noticed that Emily wore my heartache more and more like it belonged to her, like she had some kind of fault in it all. I took this as a sign of her unending love for me, looking past the guilt in her eyes for what I wanted to see, ignoring what I didn't. I am a very observant person, but I made sure I didn't notice the building remorse and shame on my cousin's face as the days turned into weeks. There was a limit to what I could take at one time, and she was being so good to me.

Once, I thought I heard Sam's voice in the house, but when no one came to get me, I thought I'd been hallucinating. How could I have known he was still coming to the house, still begging Emily to see him, fuelling her guilt? My whole family conspired to hide that truth from me. I couldn't have known, and even if someone had told me, I probably wouldn't have listened. She was helping me, and I needed her.

No one else was really there for me. The other people on the Rez, they were sure Sam had left me because he couldn't hold his own life together, and they'd long since dismissed it as old news. Sometimes I wished I could believe that too, but I couldn't really put my heart into it. I knew that wasn't the truth, even if I had no idea what his real reasons were.

My father and I had this strange, awkward conversation at one point where he tried to convince me that Sam's dumping me was for the best, and that in the long run we would both be happier, and that I should move on and allow him to move on as well. This was less than a week after Sam had ended our eighteen-month relationship, so I ignored his advice. Moving on wasn't even on my radar; I was still hoping for reconciliation, that he would come to his senses. My mother tried to comfort me, but she was very busy and could only do so much, and Seth had no idea how to cheer me up, and spent most of his time trying to hide his own disappointment. But mostly, no one talked about Sam, as though they feared that even speaking his name in my presence would send me back to my bed again. Emily was my only support.

Then one night, she didn't come home when I expected her. That evening she had convinced me that taking a bath would make me feel better, but when I dressed in my pajamas and found her in the living room, she was just hanging up the phone, and she was clearly on edge.

"What's wrong?" I asked, frowning at her as I sat down next to her. A week ago I wouldn't have noticed the discomfort on her face, as I was so engrossed in my own problems, so I took my concern for her as a measure of my own improvement. I wondered if something was wrong at home; Emily was visiting from her own reservation. She was Makah, not Quileute, but despite the sixty miles that separated our homes, our families had always made an effort to spend time together.

"Nothing," she answered me after a moment, but she looked preoccupied.

"Are you sure?"

She smiled at me. "I'm sure," she said, shaking her head as though she could shake off her distraction. "Hey," she continued. "I got us another movie."

I groaned. "Please tell me it's not a comedy."

"Sorry… it is," she said with a grin. It slipped a little as she added, "I'm kind of craving chocolate though… do you mind if I run out to the store and grab us a couple of bars?"

"Sure," I answered. "Do you want me to come?"

"No," she said, too quickly, and then softened her hurry with a smile. "No, it's fine. I'll be quick."

"Okay…" I watched her as she rose and slipped on her shoes, and then she gave me another quick half-smile before she hurried from the house. Outside, I heard her car start up, and then I heard it pull away.

An hour later, she still wasn't back. There was no way she should have taken that long, but I chose not to panic. I distracted myself with homework for another half-hour, and then I nervously tidied first my room, then Seth's. But when the two-hour mark passed, I couldn't make any excuses anymore. There was no way I could deny that she was far too late. Something was wrong; something had happened.

I was just walking out the door when the phone rang. Quickly I ran for it, grabbing it off its cradle and trying to calm my voice right before I answered.

But my mother was anything but calm. Even though she was clearly trying to be, her voice was high with worry and fear. "Leah," she said. "Can you come to the clinic?"

She meant the health and family centre; she split her time between there and the hospital, but she liked the clinic better because it was on the Rez and she got to treat and serve her own people instead of strangers.

"Yeah," I answered. "Why, what's happened?"

"It's your cousin," she answered. "She's been hurt."

My heart froze. "Is she okay?" I whispered.

There was a hesitation before my mother answered. Finally she said, "She will be. Just come on, Leah… I think she needs you right now."

"I'm on my way," I promised, and hung up the phone, running out the door and to my car as fast as I could. I drove quickly, and made it to the clinic in just under ten minutes. It was after-hours, but my mother had a key, so all the lights were on.

I was surprised to see my father and brother in the waiting room, and Seth looked scared and upset. Quickly I went to them, and as soon as he saw me Seth moved away from my father and threw his arms around my waist. He was twelve years old then, and it had been at least six months since he'd hugged me in public, but I could feel the fear in his small body as he stood in my arms. I kissed the top of his head and rubbed my hand gently over his back to soothe him as I turned my questioning eyes on my father.

"Emily was attacked," he told me. I waited. "A bear came down from the ridge… it was a bad salmon run this year. It must have been starving to come onto the Rez. Some of the guys are already out hunting for it."

"Where is she?" I asked, horrified.

"Room one," he answered. "With your mother."

"It got her face," Seth's small voice came from below me. I looked down into his eyes, which were shining with unshed tears. I smoothed the hair back from his face and gave his shoulders a squeeze.

"Stay here with Dad," I said gently, stroking a hand over his soft cheek as he nodded. I let go of my little brother and hurried down the clinic hallway, feeling the dread rising in the pit of my stomach as I reached the door of the first exam room. Hardly knowing what I would find, I opened it.

The lights were dim. Emily was lying on the table, her hands folded over her chest. She looked okay aside from the huge, bloodstained bandages that covered the whole right side of her face. My mother sat in a chair next to her, writing something on a piece of paper, as I entered the room. I couldn't tell if Emily was asleep or unconscious.

"Leah," my mother greeted me gently, her eyes full of sympathy as she took in the shock on my face. She held me close for a moment, and then with one glance in Emily's direction she left us alone. I approached the table apprehensively, but when I got close I realized that Emily wasn't asleep at all. Her left eye, the only one uncovered by bandages, looked at me, and a few tears squeezed out. Quickly I grabbed her hand.

"Emily," I said softly. "God… are you okay?" It was a stupid question, but I didn't know what else to say to her.

"My face hurts," she whispered. I saw a thin seam in her top lip open as she spoke, and her mouth gleamed with blood. Quickly I grabbed a gauze wipe and held it there until the bleeding stopped.

"Mom says you're going to be okay," I told her.

"I don't know," she answered softly, her voice so quiet I had to lean down just a little to hear her properly. "I feel so lost."

"That must have been so scary," I said, shaking my head. "I saw a grizzly bear once… it crossed the highway in front of me and my dad when I was little." Emily glanced away from me, but she said nothing. I figured she didn't want to talk about it, didn't want to relive that experience, and I couldn't blame her. So instead I sat quietly, holding her hand in both of mine.

Soon, my mother came back and told me that Emily was well enough to go home. Her bandages would have to be changed frequently over the coming days, and she would have a scar, but she was expected to make a full recovery. I was relieved, but I didn't realize the true extent of her injuries until the next day, when I helped my mother remove her dirty bandage to replace it with a fresh one.

All down the right side of my cousin's pretty face, from hairline to chin, her skin was torn in three long, ragged claw marks. They skirted her eyeball, causing it to bulge slightly from the socket on one side, which my mother promised would improve, and the animal's claws had slashed into the top of her lip, as well pulling open its corner, so even if she felt like smiling, she couldn't do it properly anymore.

In a way, her injuries helped me to put my own problems into perspective. Though I felt I would carry the grief of my broken heart until the day I died, it was at least an invisible blight. My heart ached as I looked at her, knowing that she would have to wear the evidence of this night on her face for the rest of her life.

* * *

In the days that followed, I noticed a definite change in Emily. Where she had been gregarious, bubbly, friendly and full of life, she was now uncertain, withdrawn, and self-conscious. The deep cuts on her face were healing over, but it was obvious that the scars she was going to be left with would never be discreet. I grieved for her, and for all the things she had to lose because of what seemed like just a random, cruel twist of nature.

Two weeks after she'd been mauled by the bear, Sam showed up at my house. I was completely unprepared to open the front door and see him standing there, his hands in his pockets, his eyes meeting mine with discomfort. We hadn't spoken in over a month, and I had long ago given up hope that he might come to see me. But in spite of myself, I felt a flutter of hope as I saw him standing there.

"Hi Leah," he said softly. "I heard about Emily… I wanted to see her… to see if she was okay."

The flutter in my heart died as I glared at him. "She's fine," I answered sharply.

"Can I see her?" he asked. His voice was urgent as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and I could see that his fists were clenched in his pockets, as though he was trying to stop himself from barging into the house and running to Emily's side. His behaviour dumbfounded me.

I wanted to hate him. I wanted to throw him from my doorstep, to shove him backward into our yard and scream at him until my throat grew as raw and ragged as my heart. But I couldn't. Instead, I opened the door to him and let him come inside. He immediately started to make a beeline for Emily's room, but I grabbed his arm before he could go. He looked like he wanted to shrug me off, but he didn't.

"Is it true?" I whispered. Slowly, he turned back to face me. I was taken aback at the horror in his eyes.

"Is what true?" he breathed.

"That you were coming around here, trying to flirt with her, even before you broke up with me," I answered, and I was surprised when relief flooded his face. What had he thought I was going to say?

"Leah…" He trailed off. "I don't… I know this is impossible for you. I'm sorry. I wish I could explain."

"I don't believe you," I said bitterly. "If you wished that then you'd tell me the truth about everything instead of keeping secrets. I'm not your girlfriend anymore but I thought you loved me enough not to hide your whole life from me." It felt good to say the words, to let some of my anger out, but I still felt tears creeping into my voice as I spoke.

"I know," he said softly. His eyes flickered towards Emily's bedroom and I let out a breath of frustration, waving my hand in that direction. He took off like I'd released him from some kind of physical bondage, like he'd been tied to me against his will and I'd finally cut the rope to set him free. It made me sick.

I wanted badly to follow him and listen in on their conversation, but for Emily's sake, I didn't. Sometimes, I wonder how different my life might have been if I had.


	6. Chapter 5

In the following days and weeks, Emily withdrew further and further from me. I made allowances for her, forgiving her because I knew she was dealing with a lot, and she had been so good to me. I didn't know how she spent her time away from me, and really, I didn't want to know. I guess deep down inside I sensed that something had changed, but I wasn't ready to admit it. Instead, I convinced myself that tolerating her withdrawal was an indication of my own recovery. I was proud of myself for being able to stand on my own two feet again, without her constant presence and comfort. In her absence, I shifted my focus on other things, like Seth. My brother and I had certainly had our share of fights and squabbles growing up, but compared to most of my friends with siblings, we had a really good relationship. I loved him, and always wanted the best for him, even then.

When my mother became pregnant with Seth, I was already four years old, and would be five by the time he was born. She worried about a daughter in kindergarten and a baby in her arms- how would we get along? Would we find the age gap too extreme to bond with one another? My mother was one of four children; the largest space between any two of them was a span of only thirteen short months. They had fought and clamoured for attention, but they had been very close too because their ages forced them to be. This was my mother's theory. A mere two children so far apart, though common to some, was almost unheard of on the Rez, and she worried for our relationship.

With this fear fresh in her mind, my mother ensured that Seth and I would have an excellent bond from the start. She took me to all her prenatal appointments, let me marvel at her growing body and sing songs into her belly button that I imagined would help my baby brother grow. When it came time for him to be born, she insisted that I be in the room. I wasn't scared, and marveled at my mother's strength as she worked so hard to bring him into the world. Finally, after many hours, my father woke me from a deep sleep and I hurried to my mother's side. There, I watched Seth emerge quietly from her body, as sly as a fox. Once he was out, he let out one short, polite cry, just so we would all know he was born, before settling down for a long nap.

I was fascinated. I held him moments after his birth, and as I took in his tiny bundle of arms and legs, I felt my heart swelling. I found myself in awe of what I had witnessed, in awe of my mother and in awe of Seth himself, so small and helpless. I immediately knew that I would protect him against anything that threatened his life or his happiness, and I have carried that sentiment to this day. Once you've seen your sibling's birth, and when you're old enough to have that memory fresh in your mind whenever you look at him, it's hard to tell him that you hate him or hurt him on purpose. Though we had our moments, overall we were very close, and I loved him more than almost anyone, even when he was at his brattiest.

I still felt guilty for yelling at him early on in my grief, but we hadn't spoken about it since. Along with my parents, Seth was left out from my world through my long battle with my own heartache, and until the night that Emily was mauled by that bear, I'd barely taken the time to really look at him or hug him. I felt guilty for that too, so once Emily's absences became more and more common, I sought him out, determined to make things right again between us.

One night, I found him in his room, sprawled on the bed reading a book I'd given him for Christmas a couple of years before. It was one of his favourites and he read it every six months or so. It was called _Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,_ and I'd known from even the title alone that it was right up Seth's alley. He liked that kind of dry humour, and when it involved our people, even better. Seth had always been interested in our folktales and culture, and when he was a small child I could entertain him for hours telling stories about Báyaḳ, the raven trickster through which Quileute children have been traditionally taught the right and wrong ways to behave. Since then, his literary tastes had expanded, but he still enjoyed a good read more than television or even video games, a trait I admired in him.

I knocked on the doorframe, since his door was open, and he smiled over at me, setting the book down. He sat up, cross-legged, on his bed and I went to him, settling down beside him.

"Hey," I said.

"Hey," he answered.

"So, listen, I wanted to talk to you," I told him.

"You don't have to," he said with that sweet smile of his. "I know you've been upset."

I wasn't surprised that he knew exactly what I'd been thinking about. I smoothed my hand over his soft dark hair. "I know," I said with a sigh. "But I should still pay more attention to you."

He shrugged and smirked a little. "Yeah, maybe." He grew a little more serious. "Are you okay, Leah?" he asked softly.

I was a little surprised at my own answer as I nodded. "Yeah… I am. It's still hard. But I feel a lot better."

"I miss him," Seth said quietly, glancing away from me. It broke my heart to see him feeling guilt for his feelings.

I touched his face, pulling him back gently to look at me. "Hey," I said softly. "I know he was like a brother to you… you have every right to be sad, too. But I know he still loves you, Seth."

"Except whenever he comes over he only wants to see Emily," Seth said, glaring at his bedspread.

"I know," I said gently.

"Why?" he asked, looking at me again, his eyes full of confusion. "I don't get it, Leah. Why did he break up with you? Why does he like Emily now instead? Why is he so weird now?"

How could I explain something to him that I didn't even understand myself? "I don't know," I said honestly. "I just… I think he's confused."

"He doesn't seem confused," Seth countered. "He seems mean."

I was at a loss of what to say. So, instead of agreeing or disagreeing, I pulled Seth into my arms and held him close to me. "You know," I said, trying, for his sake, to find the silver lining in all this for the first time since our breakup. "Sometimes things change. Even when we don't want them to. But then sometimes, those changes are for the best… and we just didn't know it until they happened."

"Do you really think that's true?" he asked doubtfully, pulling back from my embrace enough to look at me curiously.

I looked at my baby brother, not a baby anymore but still so young and inexperienced. His heart remained intact, unbroken, and he had never been let down by life. Looking into those innocent eyes, I felt a sudden, gripping, primal surge of love for him, and a profound urge to protect him against all the terrible things in the world- all the things that could hurt him worse than he could even imagine now. But I didn't want to lie to him either, so I settled on a half-truth. I told him, "I hope it is."

He smiled at me and said shyly, "I made you something…when you were still feeling bad."

"You did?" I was really touched. I watched him get off the bed and go to his closet, where he took out something small wrapped in tissue paper. He handed it to me and promptly got embarrassed, suddenly finding that tidying his bedside table was the most fascinating thing he could be doing right now. I smirked at his back and turned my attention to the little package.

Inside, obviously handmade by Seth himself, was a tiny Inukshuk, a wooden replication of the much larger stone monuments built by the Inuit people to look like men standing in the snow of northern Canada. There was a small ring in the top of it, through which he'd passed a length of leather cord. I knew the symbol, but I wasn't sure why he'd made it for me. I reached out and tapped him on the shoulder and he turned to me, his face red.

"It's beautiful, Seth," I told him, fastening it around my neck.

"It's an Inukshuk," he said softly, sitting down again and reaching out to hold it lightly in his fingers. "They're supposed to help you find your way… you know, when you get lost. So… I thought it might help you, too."

Even though I knew it would embarrass him, my eyes filled with tears and I pulled him into my arms, kissing his cheek. He groaned, making me laugh. "I love it," I told him. "You are so sweet."

"Yeah, yeah," he said, giving me a playful shove, but his smile told me he was proud of his work and happy that I liked it so much. "Now leave me alone, I was reading."

I laughed but obeyed him, letting him get back to his book. I went to my own bedroom, examining myself in the mirror. It looked good on me. It was a simple design, but surprisingly intricate when I'd had no idea Seth was interested in woodcarving. He'd even stained it a rich brown colour, to protect it from the oils of my skin and make it shine at my throat. What a great kid.

Sitting on the side of my bed, I thought about what I'd told Seth. I had wanted to make things better for him, to package up a broken heart and present it to him as something he could understand, something he could recognize and not be afraid of. I wanted him to know that life didn't have to be scary or painful, that it didn't have to be that way for him. But maybe it was true, what I'd said. Maybe sometimes changes were for the best… maybe this one could be, too. For me, and for Sam. I felt resentful as I wondered this, because it was what my father had suggested… but I hadn't been ready to hear it then. I was still devastated that Sam and I were no longer together, but I had started to wonder if maybe it was for the best. With how strangely he was acting, and how easily he had switched his attentions on my cousin, was he really the type of guy I wanted to be with?

But I knew I was only thinking wishfully. I did believe that Sam and I were meant to be together, even after all this. I still couldn't understand why he'd left me, or why he was obsessed with Emily. I wanted to make things easy for Seth by trying to paint a rosy picture of my own life, but I knew it wasn't true. Other than the occasional argument about how much I hated him stalking Emily, we'd barely spoken since our breakup. So, on a whim, I decided to go over there.

Sam's mother wasn't home when I got there; her car was missing from their driveway. I wasn't surprised, since she often worked late. But I could see Sam's own truck in the driveway as I pulled in. I parked behind it and sat there for a moment, steeling myself for what lay ahead. On the drive over I had realized that coming over here unannounced with absolutely nothing rehearsed was a recipe for disaster. But I was here now, so I decided to take a couple of minutes to think about what I wanted to say.

What did I want to say? I didn't want to fight- I knew that much. I missed him, as my boyfriend and my lover, yes, but also as my friend, as someone I could talk to. It was hard to lose someone to whom I had once told everything. I knew he no longer trusted me with his secrets, but I still thought of him as someone I could trust with my life and my heart, and losing that aspect of our relationship was almost as hard as losing the rest. Now that enough time had passed that my heart didn't feel like an open wound, I wanted to reconcile at least that part of our relationship. A few weeks ago, the idea of just being friends would have felt so inadequate, but now, I felt like maybe it was possible.

Taking a deep breath, I got out of the car and walked up the sidewalk to his house, taking my time. I knocked, but there was no answer. That threw me; I could see plainly that he was home. Unless he'd run off into the woods, he was here. Was he ignoring me? Had he seen it was my car and decided to pretend he wasn't home, to avoid me? That idea hurt, but I pushed it away… I didn't think it was true, not really. Maybe he had gone for a walk. But I doubted that, partly because I wanted so badly for him to be home. If he was home, his house was small and it was doubtful that he wouldn't have heard me knock. My face flamed with disappointment and embarrassment, but I also felt a bit of desperation. How could I make up with him, or be friends with him, if he ignored me? Did he not want even that? Did he want me completely out of his life, forever?

I was aware that I might have been overreacting. It was possible that Sam had simply gone for a walk. There were a million explanations besides him purposefully ignoring me, but I was still a little too sensitive to see them all. I went back to my car, but before I started the engine I hesitated. Leaning over to the glove compartment, I took out some note paper and a pen, and I wrote him a note. It wasn't anything profound, nothing that would solve all our problems and make us best friends overnight. I wasn't an overly wordy person, so I wrote, 'Hey, I was here but you weren't home… I hope we can talk. Will you call me? I miss you, and it doesn't hurt as badly anymore... I don't want to fight. Let's be friends. Leah.'

It was hard to write that I wanted to be friends, but I did it. For us. If I couldn't have him, really have him, then having his friendship would have to do. I folded the note into four and got out of the car again. Leaning down at his front door, I started to push it under, but then I worried about his mother finding us. There was nothing really personal in the note, but still, I didn't like the idea of her reading it, and I had no kind of envelope to seal it in. Hesitating for only a moment, I pulled my keychain out and let myself into Sam's house.

It felt strange standing there after so many moments of crossing this threshold, with Sam and, while he was missing, with his mother. But now, I stood there alone, and everything that was so familiar to me about this house seemed alien at the same time.

I went down the hall towards Sam's room, resolving to drop my note on his bedside table and leave. He would forgive the intrusion; I still felt I knew him well enough to be sure of that. His room was at the end of the hall, across from his mother's, with the small bathroom they shared tucked in between. I remembered countless showers in that bathroom, alone and with Sam if his mother was out; I remembered the way he would wash my back as we stood in the warm water, making a game out of running the washcloth over my soft brown skin, kissing my neck as he did it. I closed my eyes against the memory, turning away from the little bathroom. I didn't want to think about those moments, not when my intention was friendship. It was too painful. I had memories like that in my own house, too, though less of them, and I tried very hard to avoid them. The fact that I had a busy, oftentimes noisy family helped with that, but in Sam's empty, quiet house, it was hard to forget all the wonderful moments we'd shared. Moments that would never be again… but why? I had no idea.

Opening his door quickly, I moved through the darkness of his bedroom with the knowledge of someone who had been there hundreds of times, with and without light. I knew exactly where to put the note, and in a way I was thankful that the lights were off and the blinds were drawn, because then I wouldn't have to see the ghosts of all the happy memories we made in this room. I set down the note and stood there for a moment, breathing in the familiar scents that inhabited his bedroom.

As I focused on the room, my eyes started to adjust. At about the same time, I heard the quiet, even breathing of sleep. I didn't jump or make any kind of move that betrayed how started I was, but I did put my hand over my mouth just in case. When it was clear I wasn't going to wake him, I just stood there for a moment, holding my breath. I could see his shape now; he was laying on his side, his muscular back facing me, shirtless, the curve of his shoulder rising and falling just a little as he slept. I felt my heart soften; I had thought the worst of him, that he'd been ignoring me, avoiding me, and here he was, asleep and innocent, with no idea that I'd come here at all.

It was impossible to resist the urge to approach him. I calculated what the extent of his anger might be if I woke him, trespassing in his bedroom, and decided it was worth the risk. It had been so long since I had seen something as simple and familiar as his shoulder, his back, his soft black hair, that I longed for them. It was bearable, while I was away from him, where I could forget all the tiny features that I loved. But here, faced with them in living, breathing, detail, I felt that now familiar wound opening up in my heart again.

I just wanted to look at his face. I thought that would be enough. I wouldn't touch him, or wake him, and I knew it was extremely creepy of me, but I just wanted to see his gentle slumbering face, the only time he still looked completely like my Sam. I tiptoed to the side of the bed, but his thick carpet hid my footsteps well, and I knew he had never been a light sleeper. I had this crazy idea that if I saw his face, if I examined the hard lines of his jaw and softer curves of his cheeks as he slept, I could say goodbye to him. I could look at all the patches of skin that I would never kiss again, and come to terms with my loss. After that, we could really be friends. We could have a chance to start over, and even if it wasn't what I wanted most, it was better than nothing. Better than losing him completely. I prepared myself for the heartache that would come as I saw his sleeping face for the first time in weeks, but I also prepared myself to forgive him, to let him go, because I loved him… and, more than anything, I wanted him to be happy.

But I wasn't prepared to see Emily's face, tucked in against his cheek, his arms wrapped protectively around her. My cousin was so small compared to him that he had completely hidden her body from me, and their breath came in unison so even if I had been paying attention, I probably wouldn't have known she was there. She was naked; the blanket covered her but it was obvious- I could see her bare shoulders.

I stared at them. I stared at him holding her like he used to hold me; I stared at her happiness, which was supposed to be mine. I tried to be quiet. I tried to retreat with my heart and my dignity intact. But how can you look at something like that, and then walk, quietly and with composure, from the room where you had your first kiss, where you made love for the first time? For me, it was over. But for her, it was just beginning.

Oh, it was awful. I think I sort of tripped over the corner of his bedside table- I'm still not sure. But however it happened, I made a noise; despite my best intentions, I woke them up. Sam bolted out of bed, looking for an intruder, but Emily knew the moment she opened her eyes. She screamed when she saw me. There was so much information in that nose she made, and because I knew her as well as I knew myself, I could detect heartache, sorrow, guilt, humiliation, and resignation all at once in that one, high-pitched sound. She clutched the blanket to her chest, and there was such pain in her eyes that I felt it in my soul.

"Leah," Sam breathed, and I tore my gaze away from my cousin to look at him. Even the way he said my name now was different. In his expression I saw nothing but guilt; he couldn't even look at me. I felt suddenly so exhausted that I could barely move. I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes for a long moment in which we all stood there. None of us spoke. It was a surreal feeling; we all knew each other so well, and I don't think any of us knew what to say. There was so much love in that room it threatened to choke me. Never in a million years would I have thought it was possible to know such love and such betrayal from the same people, or for both of those feelings to exist simultaneously.

I stared at Sam, but I found I had nothing to say to him. He had done this thing to me; he had forced this ending upon all of us, really. Maybe he was right- maybe I would never understand why. It seemed pointless now even to wonder. Would there ever really be an answer that would satisfy me? Even if Sam told me every secret he had, here and now, and filled in all the question marks he had scattered over my life, would it really matter? He would still be here, in bed with my cousin, and I would still feel the same.

Without a word, I turned and left the room. We could have left it at that, I thought, accepted the fact that we were not meant to be anything anymore, not even friends. I had no idea then how tightly my life was bound to his, or that I could never escape him. In truth I didn't want to. Even after what I'd just seen, I still would have taken him back if he had wanted me, but I knew now that that would never happen. Whatever demons had swallowed him during his foray into darkness had spat him back up again, forever changed. He had gone to a place where I couldn't follow, or even imagine.

But Emily. She came after me, wearing nothing but her panties and his shirt, such was her haste to catch me before I drove away. I was already to my car by the time she caught up to me, and she shivered in that outfit as she looked into my eyes, saying nothing. But she didn't have to. I knew there were no words she could give me that would change this moment, and I knew her too well to hear her excuses.

Finally, she spoke to me. She whispered, "I'm sorry." I knew she meant it, with all her heart. I felt sad for her then, and I forgave her, if only because we were both caught in this strange web of pain that Sam was weaving for us. I didn't know its source, but I knew now that it was as much out of Emily's control as it was out of mine. I let her hug me, but it was hard, and I had to push her away. Sam's scent clung to her hair, the pores of her skin, and it pained me to imagine their bodies together. Sam and I had been virgins when we'd started dating. I had known no other touch, yet I couldn't say that anymore about him. More than anything, that part of it cut me deep.

Emily stood in the driveway, barefoot and freezing, as I pulled out and drove away, tears streaming down both our faces. Even when I had turned the corner onto the adjoining street and passed out of her line of sight, I knew she would still be standing there. I understood now why she had hidden guilt in her eyes whenever she'd looked at me over the past few weeks. Since her accident, as her face had healed, her heart had seemed to grow more damaged, but I had ignored it precisely because I hadn't wanted to consider this possibility.

Even now, I resisted the urge to think about how it might have happened, what he might have said or did to finally win her over, or how they had first kissed, first touched. Those were dark imaginings that had no place in my mind right now, or probably ever. But I forgave her for it all. I could see that she was as helpless as I was- maybe more so. I felt badly for her, but I couldn't bring myself to stay and comfort her. I wanted to be angry at her for what she'd done, for the betrayal, but I couldn't. I loved her… loved them both, despite it all. Unlike Sam, I hadn't found a way to turn that off.


	7. Chapter 6

Of course, as much as I wanted space and distance from Emily after that, she wouldn't have it. All through our lives we'd rarely fought, and even when we had, we'd always been quick to make up. I knew she would want that now, too, but this was no childish squabble or misunderstanding- this was a pain that went much deeper. I wanted to be alone, to pause and gather myself before we tried to move on into this new place where our roles had shifted so dramatically. But Emily just wanted to make things right.

She came early the next morning, her every footstep dripping with apology as she made her way to my bedroom. I was still sleeping, or I probably would have made it very clear that I didn't want to talk long before she had a chance to speak to me. But I was caught off-guard, asleep and unaware, and her weight on my bed woke me. She didn't crawl under the blankets or even lay down, which showed just how much our relationship had already changed. She sat next to me and I opened my eyes, expecting Seth, or maybe my mother. I wasn't prepared to see her there, to see her up close where I couldn't ignore the naked guilt in her eyes.

"I don't know what to say to you," she told me.

I sat up. She had tricked me into a situation where I had no choice but to reply. Still, I tried my best not to. All I said was, "No."

"No?" she repeated.

"Emily… I can't. I can't do this right now."

"When?" she asked in a small voice. "When will you be able to?"

"I don't know," I answered honestly. "Maybe never."

"But I don't want to leave it that way," she pleaded with me. "God, Leah… I don't want you to hate me."

I couldn't help it; the anger rose in me when she said that. "Then what is this?" I snapped. "What are you doing? How could you-" I broke off, shaking my head.

"I know," she said softly. "I wish I could explain."

"Oh God, Em, don't do that," I said heavily, closing my eyes. "Don't talk like him." She didn't say anything for a long moment. I could see plainly that she felt compelled to protect him, and it surprised me. "How long has this been going on?" I couldn't resist asking.

"Since… my accident," she said softly. She added quickly, "We never wanted to go behind your back."

"But you did," I countered. "You can't undo that."

"What _can_ I do?" she whispered.

I thought about her question for a long moment "Tell me the truth," I said softly. Though she didn't speak, her face said everything. "You know, don't you? You know what's going on with him."

"Yes…" she trailed off uncertainly.

It hurt, to know that he had not only fallen for her, but that he trusted her enough that she knew his secrets, things that he couldn't seem to even dream of telling me. And now Emily was keeping the truth from me, too. I felt like I was a victim of a giant conspiracy, or that I was going crazy. It was like Sam had cast some kind of weird spell on her, and I found that my overwhelming feeling for her was one of pity.

"I don't think you should live here anymore," I said softly. Emily had only been visiting for a short time, and she had been planning to leave next week, but I couldn't stand the idea of her being here any longer. I might not be able to hate her, but it didn't mean I wanted her in my face all day long for another day, let alone a week. Besides, I didn't actually believe she would leave now.

Emily confirmed my suspicions as she slowly nodded. Her eyes filled with tears that she struggled to hold back. "I'm not going home," she whispered. "I… I don't…"

"You don't want to leave Sam," I finished for her heavily. Her averted gaze answered for her. I let out a single breath of frustration, but then I just shook my head. "Well you can't stay here," I said firmly. More quietly I added, "Please Em… I can only take so much."

She sat there for a moment, and then she stood up, but sat down again a moment later. She took one of my hands in both of hers, which was the last thing I wanted, and her voice wavered as she said, "I don't think I can ever tell you how sorry I am, Leah… I love you so much."

"Do you love _him?"_ I couldn't help but ask.

"No," she answered softly. "But I could. He just wants… I don't know, a chance. I've run out of ways to say no. Doesn't everyone deserve a chance?"

"Don't I?" I retorted bitterly, but then I raised my hand to prevent her from answering. I didn't want to hear any more; I couldn't handle another word from her right now. So I just shook my head, dumbfounded, but said nothing. I pulled my hand away from her, and slowly she rose to her feet. She stood there for a moment, gathering her breath, trying hard not to cry, but finally she failed, and as she fled from my bedroom I could hear the tears in her small gasps for air.

Slowly, I picked up my pillow and hugged it to my chest. I squeezed so hard my arms started to hurt, but otherwise I kept my whole body relaxed. If I could just sit here, forever, not moving, not thinking, then I would be okay. I would live through this- I just had to keep breathing. One breath would follow naturally from another, and this too would pass. Somehow. If I could just make my chest a thing of ice, there was no way that my heart could be hurt any worse than it already had been.

Outside, I heard low voices, and I wondered who was awake to see Emily off- my father, perhaps, who I thought bitterly would probably embrace Sam's moving on; or my mother, who would take in the situation with shock and not really know what to say; or my brother-

The voices died and I immediately heard the sounds of quick footsteps; Seth burst through my door and stood there for a moment, his eyes shining as he looked at me, his head shaking in disbelief. I tried to smile at him, tried to make myself seem better than I felt, but I couldn't even turn my lips up properly. Finally, I just put down my pillow and opened my arms to him. He ran to me he threw his own arms around me, pulling me close. For once, he was holding me, and I sank into that embrace like it could save my life.

Through his small body pressed into my arms, I couldn't help but learn warmth again. The ice in my chest softened and the tears came, hot and thick, flowing into his soft black hair. He stayed quiet, just holding me, as I wept. I tried to recover myself, to be strong for him, not wanting him to have to deal with the burden of soothing his older sister. It was a role reversal I wasn't comfortable with, but Seth held me tightly even as I resisted his consolation.

"It's okay, Leah," he finally whispered into my hair, holding onto me like a vice. "Don't be so stubborn."

That melted the last of my resolve and I sobbed into his shoulder as he rubbed my back, murmuring words of comfort. Part of me smiled to hear his soft whispers of reassurance, because he was using the same words I had often used to comfort him as a child, like when he scraped his knee or was scared to go to sleep. Now I was the one who needed to be soothed, and Seth was there for me. For the first time in a long time, I felt safe.

But soon, I forced myself to calm down enough so that I could pull back from his arms and smile at him. I didn't want Seth to worry about me. He eyed me suspiciously but I took his hand and squeezed it, and let him hold it as I brushed the last of my tears away and took deep, even breaths.

"I hate him," he said finally, his voice quiet. "I hate her, too."

I was taken aback at first, but then I said gently, "No you don't."

"I want to," he answered insistently.

Gently, I squeezed his hand. "Well, I don't want you to."

"Why not?" he asked, glaring at my floor. "They hurt you. It isn't fair."

"Life's not fair," I sighed.

His glare moved to my face and he pulled his hand back from mine, crossing his arms over his chest. He leaned back against my headboard and I curled my feet into my legs, sitting cross-legged in front of him. I wished I knew just what was going through his head; I didn't know how to make this easier for him, and I wanted very badly just to tell him not to worry, that everything was fine, but I knew he'd never believe me.

"Why did everything have to change?" he finally whispered.

"Not everything did," I offered. "I didn't change. You didn't."

He raised his eyes to mine, and I could see the fear and confusion in them. I felt a rush of anger at Sam, and at Emily, for making my brother worry so much. I'd wanted to keep him far away from my pain, but now I could plainly see that I had failed. I reached out and ruffled his hair, smoothing my hand over the softness of his cheek and trying to look strong for him. He let out a soft breath of frustration.

"You don't have to do that, you know."

"Do what?"

"Put on a brave face like that. I'm not a little kid anymore, Leah. You don't have to protect me."

I smirked at him. "Seth… even when you're twenty-five, I'll still try to protect you."

"But you don't have to," he said in frustration, standing up and pacing to my window. I watched him, taking in his posture and the strength of his back. He was still young and wiry, but I could see that one day he could be a very strong man. But I couldn't believe that he would never need me. Finally he turned back to me and let out a sigh. "It's okay to let me be there for you sometimes, Leah," he said softly, returning to my side and sitting down on the bed next to me. "I promise I'm not going to break."

My smile was a bit sadder than I meant it to be as I gazed at him. "I know that, Seth," I said finally. And I did, really; I just didn't want to admit it sometimes. As proud as I was of his confidence and independence, I still wanted him to need me, because I needed him.

"It's not fair what Sam did to you," he said softly. "He doesn't even care that he's hurting you."

How easy it would have been to believe that, but I couldn't reconcile those words with what I knew of Sam. His stricken face from when he'd seen me in his bedroom the night before came back to me. "I think he does care," I said softly.

"I would never hurt anyone like that," Seth argued. "He's so mean."

I couldn't help but smile. "You never would," I agreed, "because you're so nice."

He tossed me a glare, but then his features softened and I knew he wasn't really mad. "I'm afraid you're always going to be sad," he said in a small voice. He offered hopefully, "I could beat him up for you."

I laughed. "You're sweet," I said, unable to contain my broadening smile. I pulled my brother into a quick hug. "I feel better," I told him. "Really."

"Really?" he repeated doubtfully.

"Promise," I said, and I actually meant it. "I'm going to have a shower… get fresh and clean."

A sly smile spread over Seth's face. "Good idea," he teased. "You stink." Then he grabbed my pillow, hit me in the face with it, and ran from my bedroom. I laughed after him, but I didn't follow him as I might have before all this; when we were younger and had lighter burdens to carry, we'd make a game of trying to see who could pin whom to the floor first. But I knew he'd forgive me for avoiding the game today.

I opted for the shower instead, and I spent longer than I needed to in there, using the warm water and guaranteed solitude to calm myself. I actually did feel a lot better afterward. But I also didn't like the result of my hour-long meditation in the shower: I still wanted to talk to Sam. I felt profoundly unsettled about how things had been left last night, and even though I'd had trouble even looking at Emily today, I still felt the urge to try, somehow, to reconcile things with Sam.

It was like a deep scab that I knew would heal better if I left it alone, but I couldn't seem to stop picking at it. I needed to know if that was even possible, if my giving it a real try would lead to an actual chance at friendship, or if I would find, once and for all, that this was the true end of a bond I once thought would carry me for the rest of my life. I didn't want to have any regrets about us; if this had to be our ending, I wanted to be able to walk away knowing that I had done everything I could to stop it.

But I knew now what a mistake it would be to just go over there like I had last night. So I called first, which I knew would be awkward in itself. I toweled myself dry slowly, stalling as I tried to plan out the words I would say. But finally, after I had dressed brushed my hair, I couldn't procrastinate anymore. Sam had never owned a cell phone, but despite how much I liked his mother I prayed that he would answer their home phone.

One wish was granted. His gruff, deep voice answered, "Hello?"

I took a breath. "Hey," I said softly.

"Hey…" He didn't sound like he was disappointed to hear from me, but I could definitely hear the guilt and discomfort in his voice.

"So, listen," I said, keeping my voice calm. "I'm sorry about last night. I shouldn't have let myself in like that. I didn't think anyone was home."

"I read your note," he answered, taking me off-guard; I'd forgotten I'd left it there.

"Oh," I said. "Okay."

"Do you still feel that way?" he asked uncertainly. "About being friends… not fighting?"

I had to think about it. "I don't know, Sam," I said honestly.

"You have every right to be angry at me," he answered.

I let out a long breath. "I know," I told him. "But… I just don't see the point. My being angry doesn't change anything. I'm just tired of this. I'm tired of these terrible moments. I'm tired of feeling like I'm talking to a stranger when I hear your voice."

He didn't answer me right away. Finally he said, "I know. I do miss you, Leah."

"In what way?" I couldn't help but whisper. I heard him hesitate, and then I realized this conversation was going too far for the phone. "I want to talk," I told him. "In person. Can I come over?"

Again, the hesitation. "Now's… not really a good time," he answered.

"She's there, isn't she?" I asked flatly. He didn't have to answer me; the silence stretched across the line for a long moment as I struggled to maintain my composure. "Name a time and place that works for you," I said finally. "I'll be there."

After a moment of thought he answered, "First Beach, by Akalat. An hour?"

"I'll be there," I repeated, and hung up the phone. I'd like to say I did so gracefully, but really I slammed the receiver down on its cradle and then I flopped onto my bed and screamed into my pillow for a good minute or two. I would have liked very much to destroy something, but I didn't want Seth to overhear me.

* * *

Akalat is the real name for the sizable horseshoe-shaped clump of rock, dirt, and trees that squats in the bay just off First Beach, where the Quillayute River joins the sea. James Island, the white people called it, but Sam preferred our name and so did I. It used to be our spot; when we wanted to escape the watchful eyes of our parents, especially when we were first together and didn't want to make a big deal out of our burgeoning relationship, we would meet here. We would sit amongst the giant logs of driftwood and share a picnic, and talk until my curfew forced us home, with Akalat looming in the background, creating beautiful red-orange panoramas at sunset.

It was the most romantic place I could think of, but Sam wouldn't have chosen it for that reason. He would have picked it because it was somewhere familiar, a place where we had shared hundreds of kisses, and where we'd said 'I love you' for the first time. He had chosen it because he wanted me to have those memories thick in the air around me when we said goodbye to that love. I knew him well enough to know that. But I still wanted to believe that the end wasn't really coming, even though in my heart I knew it had been and gone, weeks ago. I felt like the mother of a missing child, never truly understanding what happened, my heart aching with the deep, primal knowledge that my baby is gone, but still holding out hope that somehow, against all odds, she might be found alive and well.

I parked my car near the beach and walked to our spot. I had walked this way many times, but never with such heaviness in my heart. I had avoided this spot while Sam was away, saving it, I think, for when he would come home and we could again picnic here and hold each other like nothing ever happened. It had been weeks since I'd visited the beach, but now I knew, that moment would never come again.

I truly felt as though someone had died, as though I was grieving a great loss, as I reached the shelter of sun-bleached white logs. Sam wasn't there yet, but just as well. I sat down on the sand, still warm from the day's sun, and gazed out at the ocean. It was comforting to think that despite how many things had changed for me, this landscape that had formed the backdrop of my entire life- this Rez, this beach, that island- would never change. It would still be here, long after my broken heart had healed. I took comfort in the idea that I was probably not the first girl to gaze out at this particular patch of sea and feel regret and sorrow. For all I knew, my own ancestor had done the same. I felt for those faceless girls, other young women thrown off the courses of their lives by chance, adrift in a new sea through which they had no way to navigate. I knew that we would find our way again, or perish trying.

Sam's familiar footsteps cut through my daydream and I steeled myself, not moving a muscle as he approached me. Soon his broad face and deep brown eyes came into view, and then his strong shoulders, and then the rest of him. I felt a deep ache as he approached me, a physical ache of knowing that I would never feel his rich brown skin against mine, or gaze into his eyes as he pulled me close and transformed us, for a short time anyway, into a single person. But even outside of my visceral desire for his body, I just wanted him to hold me. I felt so robbed of all the gifts of a proper farewell- that last hug, that last touch, that last moment of eye contact… and the last kiss that holds the memory of every other kiss but also the knowledge that no other kiss will follow, that our lips will now have to part ways, forever. Only I knew I could never have those things, because he wasn't grieving the way I was, and he didn't feel such a loss the way I did. So I was just left, hanging.

He sat down next to me and gave me a small smile, which I returned. Then we both turned our gazes back to the sea for a long moment, not saying anything. It sounds funny now, but I remember I wished I could read his mind. I wanted desperately to know what he was thinking in that moment. But all I could hear was the silence of his presence, and the lapping of the waves on the shore, and a breeze through the trees.

He spoke first. He turned to me and said, "I'm really sorry, Leah. About last night. That wasn't how I wanted you to find out."

"Were you ever going to tell me?" I asked softly, forcing myself to tear my eyes away from the water and give them to him, even though I knew I would hate what I found there- guilt, pain, discomfort, and no love. Not real love anyway, not the deep, overwhelming love that used to glow from his eyes just for me. I never thought it was possible for that light to go out, and yet here it was gone from his eyes- extinguished.

"I was," he said. "Emily felt terrible about it."

"She should," I countered.

"She didn't want this to happen," he answered, but I looked away, not wanting to hear him defend his new girlfriend to me. He let out a long breath. "I don't want to hurt you anymore. This is the way things are now… I know how terrible that is, Leah. I do. But I can't change it."

"But maybe if you told me _why_ it had to be like this now," I answered in exasperation.

"I can't," he answered firmly.

I shook my head. "I don't know why I even came here…"

"I wish I could tell you," he said, his deep voice soft. "Every day I wish that. You have no idea."

"That's all you ever say," I said heavily. "'I can't,' or 'I wish I could,' or 'you have no idea.' How would you have felt if I just dropped you and didn't tell you anything about it?"

He reached for me, holding me gently by my upper arms, and turned me to face him. Even through my windbreaker and the long-sleeved shirt I wore underneath, his touch sent a shockwave through my body. "Lee-Lee," he said, looking deeply into my eyes. The nickname hurt. "There is something really wrong with me. I've changed… for good. Can't you see that?"

I felt the tears rising in my eyes and I pulled away from him, as much as I didn't want to break even that tiny bit of contact. "Of course I see that," I snapped. "It's all I see."

He gazed at me for a long time, but I didn't look at him. He let out a sigh and said, "Sometimes I think it would have been easier for you if I'd just died. You would have been able to move on… but instead you have this constant reminder walking around, of the old Sam."

"But you didn't die," I protested. "You might have changed, but you're not dead."

"Sometimes I wonder that," he said quietly. "Sometimes I feel like I did die, and now I'm somebody else. The same face and everything but… different inside. Completely."

The way he was talking scared me. "What happened to you out there?" I whispered. But he closed off from me so fast that even his expression went blank, so I just turned back to the sea, watching the gulls dive-bomb the water in search of fish.

"Do you want me to just stay away?" he asked finally. "Would it be easier for you if we never saw each other again?" He sounded sincere; I think he really wanted to know what he could do to help me.

Softly I answered, "Sam, there's four hundred people on this reservation. We're going to run into each other."

"When I see you, I can walk away," he tried.

"No," I said firmly. "I don't want that."

"What do you want?"

"You mean besides everything going back to the way it was, or one last moment with you as _you,_ or an explanation for why you left me and what the hell is going on?" I asked bitterly.

"Yeah," he said heavily. "Besides all that."

Besides that, what _did_ I want? I turned my head and gazed at him. He looked lost, like a little boy who'd played too roughly with a small animal and now was faced head-on, for the first time in his life, with the prospect of death and his own responsibility in the world. He looked like I felt: like he wanted everything to go back to the way it was, but he knew that it never, ever could.

Suddenly, I was crying, and not just a few tears, but thick, incessant tears complete with loud sobs. I felt my whole body shake with the force of them. Sam pulled me into his arms and I clung to him, sobbing into his chest, frustrated even now that the familiar arms that encircled my body were not as familiar as they should be, that somehow even the shape and feel of him had changed.

Finally, I could speak somewhat, and I choked out the truth without thinking about it, the answer to that question of what I wanted, besides everything I couldn't have. "I want you to promise me that one day, all of this will be better," I whispered, my voice shaking. "That I'll be able to wake up in the morning without missing you, without wondering if you're okay or if I'll ever feel warm again."

Sam squeezed me tighter and tucked my head under his chin. As for warmth, his skin was on fire, the same as it had been that first night when he'd come home, and I'd held him, kissed him, not knowing then that it would be the last time we really touched. I felt his lips very close to my ear as he whispered to me urgently, "I promise. I promise, Leah." He sounded so sure of himself that I had to believe him, even though I knew he had no way of guaranteeing any of those things.

He let me hold him for a long time, until all my tears were dry and my body had stopped shaking. I think he would have let me hold him all night if I'd needed to; I believe he would have given me almost anything to be able to make me stop caring about him and feel whole again. In that way, he still loved me. It wasn't what I wanted, but it was something. Finally, hours later, we both stood silently, and then we went our separate ways.

I would like to say that, after our goodbye on the beach, Sam Uley and I put everything behind us and became friends. I would like to tell you that Emily and I made up too, that I was able to completely forgive her and that I rose from my bed the next day as a new person. But Sam and I had taken years to build our love, and then in the course of a month he had torn it down again. It would take perhaps just as much time to build us up to a level of trust where I could call him a friend without the taste of bitterness on my tongue. The only thing I could do was let him go. That was an accomplishment in and of itself as far as I was concerned; I had come to a place where I didn't hate him, didn't hate Emily, but I didn't want them around me, either.

I needed space to digest, absorb, and come to terms with my loss, and as much as I wanted them to take the same pause, I knew they would keep moving forward, and that that would hurt me, too. Despite what I had said about the size of the reservation, I believed then that I could avoid them enough to let that wound close in the time it needed. Eventually, one day, we could all be friends. Tentatively, I looked forward to that future place, where I could laugh about this, where another person who I couldn't even imagine now could soothe me and love me and wash away all my regrets.

But that was before other boys started coming down with the same fever Sam had, a sickness that seemed to spread mysteriously through the Rez until it finally came to my own doorstep. There, it paused and gathered itself before sinking its invisible teeth into my little brother's flesh, tearing him down into a secret place of myth and horror, a place where only a select few may travel. And then, it turned on me.


	8. Chapter 7

After Sam and I parted ways on the beach that night, my life settled into a pattern that was bearable. Emily moved out, and used some savings and some money from her parents to buy a little house right off First Beach, nestled in the woods, not too far from the spot where Sam and I had said goodbye. In retrospect, I think the tribal council might have helped her out a bit too, but at the time I was just happy that I didn't have to see her every day. I avoided her and Sam, giving myself time to recover without the constant reminder of what I'd lost. Now that we had finally had some fraction of meaningful closure, I felt that I could do that. So much had changed in my life over such a relatively short period of time.

And not just losing Sam. Somewhere in all of this, I had turned eighteen, and I would soon be graduating from high school. Graduation scared me. The plan had been for Sam and I to go together to the University of Washington… we were both good students, and Sam had received a full-ride scholarship on academic merit, and had deferred it so we could leave together. I, too, was expecting some scholarships, and between that and Native bursaries and other assistance, my going to college wouldn't be too much of a strain on my parents' finances. I had been proud about going to college, but now I found I couldn't quite imagine it. I was pretty sure Sam wasn't going either, and part of me longed to get away from him and the Rez and start a new life, but it seemed like too much. I made the decision to defer my enrollment, if only because that ensured I wouldn't have to make a real decision for another year.

Not too long after our conversation on the beach, the fever had struck again; a boy a year younger than me named Paul had fallen ill with it. Unlike Sam, he hadn't had to suffer alone, and soon the two were inseparable. Slowly, through rumour and overheard conversations between my father and the other council members, I was aware that Sam had taken not only Paul but some of the younger boys- Jared, Embry, Jacob, and Quil- under his wing. They had all formed a friendship that I never would have expected from boys so dissimilar and who were formerly never seen together, let alone known to hang out. I knew most of the in passing, from school, since many of our grades tended to intermingle given the smaller student population. But I couldn't say that I knew any of them well, and I was aware of the gossip that painted Sam as a cult leader and these boys as his protégés. Mostly, though, I ignored all that.

In the summer after I graduated, about two weeks into my newfound freedom, I was throwing together random ingredients from the cupboard to make a stew for dinner. My mother was working late and my father was on fishing trip until later that evening, so when I heard the front door open I knew it was Seth getting home from school. I heard him kick off his shoes and I expected that a moment later he would appear in the kitchen and try to steal a bite of meat, so intense had his appetite been of late, but quite a long time, maybe half an hour, passed and I heard nothing more. He had been uncharacteristically gloomy and withdrawn lately, and I suspected that he was dealing with something at school, a bully maybe, or a crush. I set the spoon down and covered the pot, turning down the heat to let everything simmer, already anticipating how the rich scent of spices would fill the house.

I found him in his bedroom, sprawled across his bed on his stomach. He hadn't even pulled back the blankets, and it looked as though he'd just thrown himself there, since his feet were hanging off the bed at a strange angle. I smirked at him and approached the bed on quiet footsteps, grabbing a pillow and meaning to hit him over the head with it playfully. I was sure he was pretending to be sleeping, and would spring up at the last minute to dodge my blow. But before I could even bring the pillow up for a good swing, my arms stopped in mid-air, the pillow dropping from my hands.

My brother's breaths were coming as little gasps, as though he was struggling to take in enough air, and his face was bathed in sweat. I dropped to my knees next to his bed and put my hand on his lower back, under his shirt, and my heart froze as I felt that not only was his shirt soaked with sweat, but his back was also on fire.

I put my hand on his head and his forehead almost burned me. His dark hair was plastered to his scalp, soaking wet, and I could see the beads of perspiration rolling down his face.

"Seth?" I called his name urgently, and when he didn't even stir I put my fingers on either side of his eyelid and pulled it open. His eye was so rolled back in his head I couldn't even see his iris.

It was hard not to panic, but somehow I remained very calm. Maybe because he needed me so much, I don't know. I hurried back to the kitchen without sprinting and filled a bowl with cool water, and then I grabbed a clean washcloth and the phone and returned to his room. I set the bowl down on his bedside table and dialed the number for my mother's department at Forks Community Hospital, hurrying across the hall and into the bathroom, rifling through the drawers in search of a fever thermometer.

"I'm sorry hon, your mom's busy at the moment," the reception nurse told me after I had gotten through. I wished she'd been working at the Rez clinic today instead; she would be far more reachable there. I found the thermometer and hurried back to Seth's side.

"This is an emergency," I told her urgently. "Please have her call home right away."

"Sure thing," she answered, sounding almost bored, and I hung up on her.

I turned back to my brother, who was still oblivious to the world. "Seth," I called to him, loudly, right in his ear. Nothing. I resisted the urge to shake him and instead I sat down beside him and got hold of his shoulders, pulling him into a sitting position. With some difficulty, I got his shirt off, and then I pulled off his socks, hoping bare feet would help him dispel some of this massive heat that was overcoming his body.

I eased him down on the bed again, this time on his back, and stuck the thermometer under his armpit. Then I submerged the washcloth in the cold water and squeezed it out, laying it over his forehead and trying to soak up the sweat while cooling him at the same time. The thermometer beeped and I pulled it out, reading the digital display: 103.6°. I stared at it, and I actually put it back to get another reading, not believing that his temperature could have risen five degrees since he'd left school an hour ago. The second time I read the thermometer it said 104.2°- I knew brain damage could occur after 107.6°.

After that, I started to actually panic. I considered calling an ambulance; I knew you were supposed to wait until it was above 105° and had persisted for two days, but what if it kept rising and I waited too long? I was about to call when I heard a soft groan escape Seth's lips, and then his eyes fluttered open. I hung up the phone and touched the washcloth, amazed that it was already warm. Quickly I put it back in the cold water, and this time I draped it over his chest.

"Leah?" he whispered, sounding confused.

I could have almost cried, I was so happy to hear my name on his lips. I brushed his mop of wet hair back from his face and saw his eyes struggling to focus on me. "It's okay," I said softly, making sure he could see me. He tried to smile, but it faded almost as immediately.

"I feel really hot."

"You are," I agreed, standing and going to the window, cracking it open. The cool evening air immediately filled the room and it seemed to soothe him. He let out a soft sigh and his breath appeared to come a little more easily. I returned to his side and took his hand. "How long have you been like this?"

"I don't know," he said. "I was kind of feeling bad at school. Then when I got home I felt even worse. I don't even remember getting into bed."

"I called Mom," I told him. "She was busy but she should call back soon. I was just going to call an ambulance."

"Don't," he protested. "I hate hospitals."

"I know," I answered sympathetically. "But you're 104°, Seth."

"If gets really high, you can take me," he promised. "No ambulance."

"Okay, fine," I agreed. It was true that it would be faster to take him there myself; sometimes the ambulances took hours to get out to the Rez, because we 'weren't a priority,' not technically being part of Forks. The bureaucracy in that argument ignored the fact that we didn't have our own ambulances, or a hospital to go to. Just the clinic, which could handle basic illnesses and injuries that you wouldn't call an ambulance for, anyway. I knew the real reason behind it- lots of people on the Rez didn't have health insurance, and they didn't want to deal with us. Better that I take him myself.

"I'm going to check your temperature every fifteen minutes," I told him.

"Did you call Dad?" he asked.

"Dad? No, why?"

"You should call him," was all he'd say.

"I don't think he has his phone," I said doubtfully. "He's fishing, Seth."

"He took it," he answered. "I know he did."

I didn't really understand why he wanted our father involved, who was at least a half-hour drive away, but I obeyed Seth's wishes and dialed the number for the cell phone that he almost never used.

I was surprised when he picked up on the second ring, "Hello?"

"Dad, hi, it's Leah."

"What's wrong?" he asked. He knew me well enough to pick up on the fear in my voice immediately, even though I'd tried to hide it.

"It's Seth… he has a really high fever. I called Mom but she's busy at work. I was going to call an ambulance but-"

"No," he cut me off. I waited, and he went on, "I'm going to come home." The way he spoke he sounded almost like he'd expected this, which I didn't understand.

I thought maybe he didn't grasp the urgency of the situation. "His temperature is really high, Dad," I explained. "Like 104° high."

"Just sit tight, Leah," he said. "I'm going to get my stuff together and head back there. Just stay with him and keep him comfortable… when your mother calls, tell her not to worry."

"But Dad, _I'm_ worried," I argued. "I think this is serious."

He hesitated before he answered me. "Leah," he said. "You have to trust me on this. He's going to be okay."

"But how do you know that?"

"I know," he answered mysteriously. His voice softened a little. "Leah, I know this is hard for you… Seth loves you. I'm glad you're there."

"If Mom thinks he needs to go to the hospital, I'm taking him," I said flatly. "You're not here. He's really sick."

"I'll be there soon," he answered. "Just… don't do anything until I get there."

"Well you'd better hurry," I countered, and hung up on him.

"Is he coming?" Seth asked quietly.

"Yeah, he's on his way. He acted like he already knew you were sick before I called him."

Seth glanced away from me and said, "Really? That's weird."

I let out a sigh. "I don't know what's going on," I said heavily. "And I really don't care right now. I'm not letting your brain boil no matter what Dad says." I picked up the washcloth again and dipped it in the water, but the water was already lukewarm because of how fast his body had warmed the cloth. I picked up the thermometer and stuck it under Seth's arm and then went back to the kitchen. This time I refilled the bowl not only with water, but with ice, too, if only to ensure that it would stay cold long enough for it to help him.

When I came back to his room, Seth was on the phone. I paused in the doorway, surprised, but he fell silent when he saw me. "Is that Mom?" I asked. He nodded, so I took phone from him and put it to my own ear, "Mom? What should I do?" I took the thermometer from under Seth's arm and read it. "His temp's gone up half a degree since I took it fifteen minutes ago."

My mother sounded worried. "Even from his voice I can hear that he's struggling," she said. "Watch him very carefully, Leah. If it gets past 106°, promise me that you'll bring him in."

"Of course," I said. "Dad's on his way home, too. He said we shouldn't worry but I don't think he gets how serious this is." I was glad she did, at least.

"Your father loves to underreact," she said with a small smile in her voice. "Do you want me to come home?"

I did, but I knew it wouldn't be so easy for her to just leave the hospital in the middle of her shift. Besides, I wanted her to be there if we had to come in, and I didn't want her to think I couldn't handle it, so I said, "No. I'll call you if it gets worse."

"Okay, sweetie," she said. "I told Rhonda to put you right through to me next time you call."

"Thanks, Mom," I answered, and we hung up. I took Seth's hand in mine and started running the cold washcloth up and down his arm gently, trying to draw the fever out, or at least lower it to a less alarming number.

"Thanks," he said softly.

"No problem," I answered. We sat in silence for a while, but I was thinking about the other boys from school, the ones who had come down with a fever, missed some days, and then seemed to recover as quickly as they'd first become sick. I hoped it would be the same for Seth- minus the sudden fascination with Sam, anyway. "Hey Seth, those other kids at school…" I said. "Did they ever say what they had? I wonder if you caught it from them."

"I don't know," he said. "They never mentioned what it was."

I debated calling one of their parents; I knew my father at least had the number for Quil's grandfather, and for Billy Black as well, and my own mother had once been in a book club with Embry's. I resolved to call one of them, if it got worse. For now, I focused on bringing down Seth's fever, and what little I could do did seem to help him, which made me feel more in control and less panicked about the situation.

"I'm making stew for dinner," I told him. "Are you hungry?"

"I'm always hungry," he answered with a little smirk. "It feels like I can never eat enough anymore."

"You must be going through a growth spurt," I said teasingly, with a little smile. "Don't you dare get taller than me. You have to stay a baby forever."

Seth's features suddenly darkened and he glared at me. "I'm not a baby," he snapped.

Taken aback, I didn't say anything for a moment. "I know that…" I faltered. "I was just kidding."

"Yeah, well don't," he retorted.

"Seth-"

"I know what you think of me, Leah," he cut me off. "You think I'm just a stupid little kid. Like your personal doll."

His words cut deep. "Seth… I don't think that," I protested. "God, I love you so much. Don't you-"

"Just be quiet," he whispered angrily, closing his eyes against me.

I turned my head and put the washcloth back in the water, wringing it out and focusing hard on the task to fight down my rising tears. I took his far hand in mine so I could lift his arm and sponge it down like I had the other, but he grabbed the washcloth before I could and ripped it out of my hands.

"I can do that," he snapped. "I'm not useless, you know."

I stared at him as he took over my job. "I was just trying to help," I said finally.

"Yeah, well go help someone who needs it," he answered flatly, not looking at me.

For a long moment I just sat there, not knowing what to do. Finally I picked up the thermometer and said softly, "Put this under your arm." He did, and within ten seconds it beeped, and I read it. "You're at 104.9°," I told him. "It's not rising as fast as it was before." I stood up. "If you need me, call me." Without another word I left him there and went into the bathroom, splashing cold water on my face until I felt calm again.

I returned to the kitchen and checked my stew, and then I grabbed a random book off the shelf and sat down on the couch to read. But I couldn't even concentrate long enough to get through the first page; I was too worried about him. I dismissed his anger, assigning it as a side effect of his illness, but still, what he'd said had hurt. I couldn't help but wonder if that was how he _really_ felt, and if it the fever was just drawing out the truth.

After fifteen minutes passed I went back to his bedroom. I hesitated just outside the doorway but forced myself to go inside and not show that I'd been hurt by his words. I picked up the thermometer from his bedside table and held it out to him.

Seth looked at it for a moment, then at me. "You can do it," he said quietly, and patted the bed beside him before lifting his arm up. I sat down next to him and put the thermometer in place. After he'd closed his arm over it he tentatively met my eyes. "I'm sorry, Leah," he said quietly. "I don't know why I got so mad at you."

"It's okay," I answered gently. I reached up to ruffle his hair, but then I stopped myself, realizing that would make him feel young. He surprised me by head-butting my hand.

"Don't," he said. "You can still do that… I like it."

So I smiled, threading my fingers through his hair, noticing that his head still felt hot, but his hair had dried somewhat, which implied that there wasn't as much sweat pouring into it: that was a good sign, I hoped. The thermometer beeped and I grabbed it, but my smile faded as I read the numbers on the digital display: 105.6°. It was picking up again. Only 0.4° away from when my mother had said to bring him in.

"I'm going to get you a glass of water," I told him, and went back to the kitchen, pouring him a glass and throwing in a couple of ice cubes. Quickly I located his jacket, my car keys, and our identification cards in preparation for taking him to the hospital, and then I returned to him, handing him the glass. "Drink the whole thing, if you can," I said, sitting next to him. I touched his hand; fire was almost an understatement for what it felt like.

I sat with Seth for a while and he managed to drink the entire glass of water. I hope it soothed him. I knew it would take time to see if his fever would go down, but when I took his temperature again and it was at 105.9°, I couldn't justify stalling any longer. I brought him his coat, insisting that he wore it even though he complained bitterly that it was too hot, and then I left a note for my dad saying what Seth's temperature was, where we were going to be, and that I'd left the stove on.

But the note turned out to be unnecessary, because just as I was heading for the door, my car keys in hand and my arm around Seth to keep him walking in a straight line, my father walked through the front door. He took one look at us and frowned.

"Seth, go back to bed," he said gently.

"Dad, I'm taking him to the hospital," I countered, trying to go around him, but my father blocked the door. "Dad!" I snapped, completely exasperated now. "In another couple of degrees his brain could be damaged- is that what you want?"

"What?" Seth asked in a high, frightened voice. I could have kicked myself.

"Don't worry, son," my father said, placing his hand on Seth's shoulder and giving him a comforting look. He seemed so confident that Seth would pull through this fine, I almost believed him myself. But, stubbornly, I insisted that we still had to go the hospital. I insisted all the way through my father helping Seth take his coat and shoes off and leading him back to his bedroom, where he closed the door. Then he turned his attention on me.

"Dad, we have to take him to the hospital," I said, feeling like a broken record now. I couldn't believe this was actually my life; was I going to have to physically remove my brother from this house, or resort to some drastic measure like hitting my father over the head so he wouldn't prevent us from leaving? This was ridiculous, and I didn't understand how he could be so calm about it all.

"Leah, come with me," he said. I let him lead me through the kitchen, eyeing my mother's cast-iron frying pan with some seriousness, and into the living room, where he sat me down on the couch with him."You know we have to wait a couple of days before they can do anything for him there," he said reasonably. It was true; I'd heard my mother tell countless stories of people bringing their children in with high fevers, and she could do nothing but turn them away with assurances that they would help if the fever lasted. Mostly, it broke, and she never saw them again.

But I couldn't stand by and do nothing. I argued, "Mom told me to bring him in if he hit 106°."

"Your mother would take his fever for himself if she could," he pointed out, meaning, basically, that she was overreacting.

"So would I," I said stubbornly.

"But you can't," he answered gently. "Seth needs to make this journey alone."

"What journey?" I asked, confused. "This isn't some sweat lodge ritual, Dad, this is his life. He's really sick."

He frowned at me and I knew why: he hated when I talked like that, making light of traditions that for him were as sacred as any religious ritual, even the ones our particular tribe didn't practice.

"Your brother needs your strength now," he said. "We can't help him in the way you want… all we can do is see him through."

But I was already making plans to kidnap him.

I watched my father stand up, go to the kitchen and taste the stew that was still bubbling on the stove. He turned to me and said, "I'm going to call Sam now."

"What?" I asked, frowning. "Wait… Sam _Uley?"_ I clarified, as though there might be someone else he meant, some other Sam I'd never met.

My father said nothing either way; he just returned to my side and stooped down a little to give me a small hug around my shoulders. "Now is the time to be brave," he told me. And then he disappeared into Seth's room, and all I could do was stare after him in disbelief.


	9. Chapter 8

That night, when Sam rushed to our house at my father's bidding, I avoided him by getting in my car and driving away from there. I wanted to scream. I couldn't stand leaving Seth there, sick and helpless, but what could I do? I had to trust my father, and that he knew what was right, that he had some knowledge of this that I didn't. It seemed like everyone did.

I drove until I ran out of road, and I found myself at Rialto Beach, so I parked my car and continued on foot. I walked right down the sandbar and trudged into the ocean up to my knees. It was freezing, but I think I just wanted to feel that I could escape all this, that I had an option. But I stopped just short of diving in. Instead I turned and walked through the surf, belatedly glad that I had slipped on a pair of sandals instead of runners as I'd fled from my house.

I stayed out for a good couple of hours, so by the time I got home Sam was long gone, and my mother had returned from work. I found her and my father eating my stew at the dining room table, one extra place set for me, but none for my brother. Cautiously I approached them; if they noticed my soaked jeans, they didn't comment.

"Mom?" I asked tentatively. "How's Seth?"

"He's fine," my father answered for her.

"Have something to eat, sweetheart," she said, pulling my chair out.

"I'm just going to change my clothes," I said, frowning at how calm and untroubled my mother seemed. But I hoped that it meant that Seth was better.

I went to my room and found a pair of sweat pants, exchanging my jeans for those. I moved quickly so I would have time to duck into Seth's room; he was fast asleep, wearing nothing but boxers, on top of the blankets with his window wide open and three fans set up to blow on his body from various angles. I touched his skin, and if possible it was even hotter than it had been before. Yet it didn't seem to be wreaking as much havoc on him, as though somehow his body was adjusting to the fever. I closed the door on him and left him alone to sleep.

I joined my parents for an uncomfortable dinner. We made small talk, all of us dancing around the one subject that made any sense. But it was just as well that we didn't have that conversation: between my father's assurances that everything would be fine, and my mother's blind trust in his words, I wouldn't have been able to get a word in edgewise. At least, not one that mattered. So I left it alone, wishing I still had the ultimate trust in my parents that I'd had a small child, when they could do no wrong.

Three days passed. Seth's temperature rose and rose, yet still my father insisted that we do nothing. Once, I heard an argument between my parents in the night, but my father quickly soothed my mother's concerns, and I overheard no other proof that she might have sided with me. For Seth's part, I had to admit that he seemed mostly okay. Every time the fever spiked, his breathing would become difficult, he would perspire to the point that our mother had to give him a full sponge bath and change the sheets at least twice a day… but then his body seemed to catch up to the heat, and he was okay again. I didn't know how, but Seth's body seemed to be learning how to function at a temperature that should have been impossible.

I had to constantly make excuses to leave the house, as Sam insisted on visiting daily, and on the fourth day I took advantage of a friend's invitation to go shopping for new clothes. I left just as Sam was arriving, so though I had to see his face and the guilty look he gave me, I didn't have to speak to him. I counted that as a victory, and looked forward to a day of mindless shopping. In the old days, I had loved to shop, and could spend whole afternoons and evenings in Port Angeles with my friends. I felt badly that I had been so careless of them, but the ones who had stuck by me while I had been dealing with Sam's changes all understood, and I was glad for a girls' night out. We drove in separate cars, meeting at a favourite shopping mall in Forks that had been our second home only a short couple year or two ago. We had gone there almost every day after school back then, still inhabiting that strange age bracket where a mall seems like the most important place to be. Apparently my friends still resided there, though I felt like I had moved on long ago. But still, it was a good reason to get out, and to spend some time with people that I had neglected too often these past several months.

I was preoccupied worrying about Seth, but I tried to have fun. Still, I found it difficult. I was with two good friends of mine from the Rez, Hannah and Lindsay, who I had known since we were toddlers, yet I was surprised to find myself feeling irritated at the silliest things. It was true that their whispered giggles over a cute boy or gossip about the latest movie did seem a bit uninteresting given what I'd been dealing with lately, but still- they were my friends. I couldn't seem to shake my foul mood, and even snapped outright at Hannah for some innocuous comment I can't even remember now.

As an apology, I sprung for ice cream at our favourite place, partly to make it up to them, and partly because I felt warm and hoped it would cool me down. I listened with half an ear to their gossip and small-talk, mostly about Rez boys they liked and adventures they'd had in Forks and Port Angeles that I'd missed out on during my grieving, that sort of thing. I started to find it difficult to concentrate on what they were saying, and I must have spaced out for a minute, because the next thing I knew they were staring at me.

"Sorry," I said, touching my flushed cheeks. "Did you ask me something?"

"No," Lindsay said. "I said you look weird… are you sick or something?"

"No…" I answered, an unfounded flash of rage blossoming suddenly in my chest. "I'm fine. What do you mean I look 'weird'?"

"You're all red," Hannah said, after exchanging a nervous glance with Lindsay. They were both gazing at me in what I was sure was concern, but I felt myself squirming under their eyes. Beneath the table, my fists clenched with irrational anger.

Lindsay dug out a compact from her purse and flipped the mirror open, holding it up to my face. I was so surprised at my own appearance that I didn't recognize myself right away: my cheeks were flushed bright red, but in a strange, blotchy pattern, as though my face couldn't decide if it wanted to be rosy or pale. And underneath, my skin had a sickly, pallid colour that emphasized the dark circles under my eyes. But even those looked different- I had a vacant look in my eyes, like they weren't quite focusing.

As though seeing my own face made my symptoms more real, I suddenly felt overwhelmed by flashes of heat that tore through my whole body. I put my head down on the cool metal table and tried to take deep breaths. I felt one of my friends put her hand on the back of my neck, and it felt like ice.

"You're burning up," Hannah gasped.

"Yeah, Leah, you should really go home," Lindsay said.

Slowly, I stood up. They were both looking at me, two sets of brown eyes wide with concern.

"Do you want me to drive you?" Hannah asked.

"No," I said quickly. "No, I'm okay… I'll be fine."

"Okay," Lindsay said doubtfully. "Call us later, alright?"

"Sure," I said. "I'm just going to go to the bathroom. I'll see you guys later." I made a beeline for the ladies room, but it was like I barely felt the cold water hit my face. I avoided my own gaze in the mirror and then I left the bathroom, hurrying to my car. I dropped the keys on the ground as I got them out of my purse, which was probably an indication that I shouldn't have driven at all, but I was only forty minutes from home.

I managed to get the keys into the ignition on the first try, and then I drove- carefully- out of town towards home. Once I was on La Push Road it was a relatively straight shot to the Rez, which is probably the only reason I didn't end up in an accident. As my headlights sliced across the lines that marked the lanes of the highway, strange images danced in my vision. The lines made weird patterns in front of my eyes, and more than once I had to catch myself from getting lost in those designs, instead of watching the road. On some level I knew I was hallucinating, and that it was very wrong that I felt hot even with my windows down and the air conditioning blasting. But I felt like I could only concentrate on one thing right now, and that was getting home alive in one piece. Luckily, there weren't many people on the road to the Rez that night.

When I saw my house I felt such a wash of relief that I had made it, so much relief that my hands started shaking and I realized that I'd been holding back my panic and the full extent of my illness. I managed to stop the car before I plowed into the house, but other than that my parking job was more of a slow skid through the mud with perhaps only one of my tires actually ending up on the driveway.

I sat in the driver's seat, not cutting the engine because I didn't want to lose that precious air conditioning. I was happy to see that Sam's truck was gone, but other than that I didn't notice much about my surroundings. I felt overwhelmed by heat, and my vision was not just playing tricks on me anymore, it was going black. Little stars pushed at the corners of my vision as it blurred, and my head was overcome with pounding, all other sounds fading out as I felt my whole body shaking as the fever overcame me. The last thing I remember is the sound of my car's horn blaring as I collapsed onto the steering wheel, finally losing my battle to stay conscious.

* * *

I couldn't say how much time passed- if it had been minutes, hours, or days- before I woke up again. I was in my bed, on top of the blankets, one of the fans stolen from Seth's room and put to use in my own. My mother had undressed and redressed me, and I lay there in nothing but a pair of boy shorts and a tank top, a light sheet draped over me. Yet still my body burned. I felt like there was a fire smoldering in my chest, and it was threatening to overwhelm me.

At first I thought I was alone, but then I sensed my father's unmistakable presence in my room. I struggled to open my eyes, and I could see the beads of sweat clinging to my lashes as I finally did. My hair felt like one soaking, muggy mass where it lay plastered to the back of my neck, and every part of me was uncomfortable. I searched the dim light of my room and found my father's face, but I couldn't read his expression at first.

He frowned at me then, evidently not happy to see his daughter's return to consciousness, and I saw what I thought was fear and confusion in his gaze as I looked at me. I had to close my eyes then, because the fever was playing tricks on my vision- my father's soft wisps of gray-black hair looked like they were made of thousands of crawling, pulsing beetles. They were the shiny black kind that I used to hunt in the yard, placing them in tiny bottles so I could show Seth their delicate legs and wings, and the curves of their backs that he so loved.

When I opened my eyes again, the beetles were still there, and when my father spoke to me, I couldn't understand him. At first I thought he was speaking Quileute, which would have been ridiculous because I knew perhaps a dozen words of that language, and my father was hardly more fluent. When he spoke, his tongue emitted puffs of purple smoke that I eyed suspiciously.

Finally, when I avoided looking at him at all, I was able to understand him. He was saying, "Leah, you need to stop this." I tried to open my mouth and reply to that, but I couldn't. The mechanics of combining my lips, teeth, and mouth, as well as my brain, seemed overwhelming. He went on, "Seth needs to make this journey alone."

He thought I was faking. He thought this was some kind of misguided attempt on my part to join my brother in the scary place where he now lived, with one foot in life and one in death. But I didn't want that- I wanted to help Seth, not succumb to the same illness that had ravaged his body for half of the last week. I couldn't understand how my father could blame me for something that felt like it could easily kill me. I closed my eyes angrily against his words, but apparently he'd said everything he'd needed to, because he left me alone after that.

My mother moved between her two children's rooms, sponge-bathing us, feeding us ice cream and cold water, whispering words of reassurance into our ears, and keeping us comfortable. I felt so positive that I was dying, that this sickness was going to pull me under until I would finally lose my hold on life, letting it slip away with one last gasp for breath. When I slept, which was often, I dreamt of snow, of ice, of all the cold things I could think of, not knowing then that I would never feel cold again.

The fever dragged me out over the coals of five long days and nights. I remember very little of that time: only the constant agony of my burning body, from which sleep was the only escape. I was aware of voices from time to time- my mother's, my father's, and Sam's, but I usually couldn't make out what they were saying, and it was a struggle just to listen. Once I heard Seth's voice, and I was sure in that moment that we had both been killed by whatever was working through us. I cried and told him I was sorry, that I wished I had taken him to the hospital. I remember him trying to soothe me, telling me that everything would be okay, but by that time I couldn't even remember what it felt like to be properly alive, so I couldn't believe him.

And then the fever just disappeared. I would have fallen down on my knees and pledged my life to any god that came forward to claim responsibility for that. I had been dying and now I was alive- I felt like nothing could ever be better than this. I wanted to dive into a snow bank, to run to the ocean and throw myself into the icy waves. I wanted to eat; I was so hungry that I was sure I could have eaten through my family's entire pantry and refrigerator and still been ravenous at the end. But even standing was a trial, so I started with that.

When my father found me conscious and upright, I expected his comfort. Not his horror, his wide eyes turned on me as though I was something unknown to him, not his daughter but a hideous creature- something to be feared. When he refused to help me, and ran off to get Sam _Uley_ of all people, I lost it. I wish I could say that tearing apart my room made me feel even a tiny bit better, but it didn't.

And then the change, the fear and confusion that accompanied that moment, the panic. Seth had tried to reassure me, and it had made me feel a little better to see him for the first time in days, to see that he was healthy and well. But even he couldn't take away my horror as I looked down where my hands should have been and saw huge gray paws instead. I was so sure I was going crazy; what else could I think? Who turns into a wolf? It was ridiculous, impossible. And then, when the voices cut through my mind, invading the privacy of my own thoughts, their silent tones familiar yet unfamiliar, I was sure of it: I had gone insane. The fever had boiled my brain to the point of damage, and it had stolen my senses.

It was hard not to panic when Seth left me alone, but unlike my father, I believed not that he had abandoned me, but that he was going for help. I tried to stay perfectly still, to ignore my hallucinations, but when Sam's familiar gruff tone joined the other voices, I couldn't resist talking to him. Maybe it was because I still trusted him, as much as I wanted to pretend I didn't. Maybe it was because of what he said to me, _You're not crazy, Leah,_ and how much I wanted- needed- to believe that. I don't know what made me answer him, but I was sure that reply would be my undoing.

Finally, he came to me, not a hallucination at all but Sam in the flesh, real before my eyes. I had no doubt that it was really him, but as much as I wanted to accept the comfort he was offering, I felt threatened and cornered enough without him there. With him, it was almost unbearable being stuck in my bedroom that was now suddenly far too small. He told me not to be afraid, but how could I not be? I felt like my grip on reality had faltered, and this unreality seemed so genuine that I didn't know how to distinguish it from the truth.

With this attitude, I don't know how I accepted Sam's transformation before my eyes. Maybe on some deep, genetic level, the same level that had set off my own transformation, I knew it was true. Maybe, somehow, I had a deep, instinctual knowledge that the stories my father had told me as a child were not myths at all, but factual accounts of our tribe. Or maybe I was just too tired to fight anymore. So, I accepted it: accepted that Sam could change into the form of a wolf, and that I could, too.

But as much as I accepted it, I was terrified of the gravity of that knowledge. It fell onto me like a heavy burden, heavier even than the burden I had taken on after Sam left me, when I believed it had been my fault. This burden made me feel trapped, because I knew the one thing I could never escape was my own body, and somehow I had lost control of it. I wanted to cry, to run away, yet I was rooted to the spot, unable to move. And the only person I had to see me through this was Sam Uley, the man I swore I wouldn't talk to for a very long time. Yet I didn't have to talk to him at all- his voice was already inside my head. Fate had conspired to make an already terrible situation just that little bit worse.

Gently, I felt his mind reach out to me. Tentatively his consciousness tested my boundaries, so that he didn't invade my thoughts like an assault as the others had before, but allowed me to get used to his presence. Still, it was an unnerving feeling, and I was surprised how physical it was- the push of his mind against mine. When he was through I had this odd impression that he was holding me in his arms, the connection made us that close.

Finally, I heard his voice in my head, as clear as if he was speaking to me from where he stood, _Leah._ Accompanying the single word of my name came images of me- a smile, a blush, a laugh, a moan of passion, a look of stricken grief. They were all so fleeting, so quick, that I couldn't be sure that I had seen them at all.

_Sam,_ I answered tentatively, feeling strange for just thinking his name, but he seemed to hear me, somehow. I wondered if he got a similar flood of images from my own mind, but if he did he said nothing about them.

_I'm sorry this happened here,_ he thought to me. _It might take you some time to figure out how to change back, and I don't think you'll be able to get out of your room until then._

_I don't want to be trapped in here,_ I thought, the idea making me almost panicky. I was not claustrophobic as a rule, but this was an extreme situation.

_Just stay calm,_ Sam thought. _The more worked up you get, the harder it'll be to shift._ This time when he spoke I felt another barrage of images, but I got the distinct impression that, unlike those that had accompanied my name, he was actually sending these intentionally. I saw myself happy in so many moments- our first kiss, our picnics on the beach, a hike through the mountains, secret smiles to each other across the heads of other students in the middle of a test, me cuddled into his shoulder sleeping on a long drive, his fingers tracing the naked curve of my hip while we lay in his bed, and so many more. I think he was showing them to me to soothe me, to calm me down. Instead, they had the opposite effect.

I turned my face away from him, as if that would stop it. _Don't._

_Leah-_

_Sam,_ I interrupted. _I don't want to see that stuff. Those aren't happy memories for me anymore._

His voice in my head was silent for a long time, but finally, so gentle that it was just a ripple in my mind, I heard him again. _Then let me show you something else, _he thought._ Let me tell you everything._

For a moment, I held my breath. This is what I had wanted for so long, but now that he was offering to give me everything, I felt the terror rising in my chest. It was so much… first this frightening change, and now this? Was I ready for it? Could I handle it now? My mind warred with the possibilities for a long moment, and I was sure that Sam was seeing my every thought, but I didn't know how- or if it was even possible- to cut him off.

But finally my need to know the truth overwhelmed my caution, and I gave my assent, not even bothering to think the word 'yes,' but somehow conveying my permission, wordlessly. The theory that I had gone insane was rapidly retreating from my mind, but I wasn't yet ready to fully accept the alternative. So I ignored the specifics, and opened my mind to his thoughts without wondering how, or why, it could be possible. Closing my eyes, I invited him to show me everything; I just wanted, finally, to hear the truth.


	10. Chapter 9

**Author's Note:** Sorry I'm a bit late with the update... had a busy week and I'm working on this as I'm simultaneously developing a sequel to my Jacob/Bella fic "Duty Bound," so hopefully you'll all forgive me! Anyway, enjoy, and please review!

* * *

Sam, or at least the wolf version of him, sat down on his haunches in front of my bedroom door. I sat down across from him, feeling ridiculous, but also frightened of what was coming, of what he was going to show me. I had given my permission and now I was waiting, on bated breath, for the truth. But Sam seemed to be hesitating, as though second-guessing his plans.

_Hey,_ I thought towards him, looking into those dark brown eyes that were still somehow his. _You promised._

I could almost hear his long exhalation before his deep voice rang out in my head, _Okay._ Then, suddenly, images.

I immediately knew where I was. First Beach, what seemed like a lifetime ago, the first time Sam had met Emily. But this time I was seeing things through Sam's eyes. It was a very weird feeling, almost uncomfortable. I saw him arrive, and I could actually feel how much he was looking forward to seeing me, since we hadn't spent much time together the last week. I'd been busy with Emily. I watched him watch my car drive up, and I felt his excitement and love for me emanating outward as though moving in physical waves through the air. I watched myself emerge from the driver's side of the car, and then the passenger door opened and Emily-

The vision cut off. I was frustrated, but I allowed Sam to move me backward through time. Apparently he had changed his mind about where he wanted this story to start, or maybe the thought of that night had simply crossed his mind, absently, and I'd seen it against his intentions. I still wasn't sure just how this link worked, how much I could see, or how the images and our voices were transmitted back and forth.

This time, I didn't recognize the setting. It was somewhere in the woods, but it seemed very far away from the Rez. I saw through Sam's eyes as he walked through the forest, not seeming to have a destination, but just absently wandering. His height in relation to the path told me he was in wolf form during this memory. Then, belatedly, the emotion in the scene caught up with me and I could feel overwhelming anguish, uncertainty, and fear. I recognized the terror of distrusting one's own sanity, and it shook me to the core. The loneliness I felt as I experienced Sam's memory would have been enough to make me break down and sob, if I could.

Again, time jumped, and that vision ripped away from me. This time I found myself at Sam's house, and I was back in that place again where I'd been for the last few days, feeling the fever ripping through my bones and expanding outward until I thought it would choke me. Except the body I felt was not my own, but Sam's, familiar to me and foreign all at once when experienced this way. Then the vision went dark, abruptly, like the others.

_You're confusing me,_ I told him impatiently.

_I know, I'm sorry; I've never done it this way before. I'm going backwards… hang on. _He seemed frustrated as well, and for a long moment I saw nothing from him. Then the vision returned, the same one again, and I felt it all- the fever, the pain and fear. I saw Sam's mother worrying over his bedside, saw his visits to the clinic and even the emergency room, saw the confusion on the faces of the doctors. I felt the sharp chill of the ice baths they gave him, felt my own lungs gasp and contract against the shock in time with Sam's. And I felt the dismay of seeing the numbers on the thermometer creep back up again, just as I had felt as I watched Seth's steady downward spiral.

I saw the days pass, somehow presented to me in fast-forward but without any details being lost. Then I saw his fever break as mine had done, in a moment of rage against his mother for the smallest thing- a comment about his hair of all things, which he had cut off in desperation, trying to keep his body as cool as possible. He screamed at her, and then he bolted from the house, running off into the woods. I re-experienced my own moment of transformation through him, felt myself- him- reel in panic as his hands were replaced with massive black paws. I saw the speed at which he could run, tearing through the underbrush as he ran flat-out for miles, each one taking a fraction of the time to cover as it should have.

I felt the anguish of that time in the woods, so much fear and panic that it tore me down and left me breathless. Sam- I- wandered for days in the woods, trying desperately to convince himself that he hadn't gone insane, and becoming frustrated, angry, and terrified when he couldn't figure out a way to change back. I saw how long it took him to finally return to human form, and how he wept like a child when he saw his skin again, flexed his fingers, ran his hands over his nose and cheeks and chest. I saw him return home, broken and confused, full of apology to a mother he now felt removed from, as though a chasm had gone up between them over that short span of time.

Then the images got more difficult for me. I saw next, through his eyes, when I came to see him that first time after he was home. Sam was relieved to see me, but that same chasm he felt separated him from his mother had come between us, too. He was terrified. He tried to cling to me, to bring us back to a place where things could make sense again, but I pulled away from him. He wanted to tell me everything right then, yet he was afraid. He didn't know then that it would be his only chance.

The day after I went to him, I was surprised when I walked with Sam toward a knock on the door and saw my father standing on the doorstep, with Quil's grandfather next to him and Billy sitting just behind. Sam let them in, hurrying to find them something to eat or drink, because having the entire tribal council in your living room doesn't happen every day.

"Sit down, son," my father said to Sam.

Reluctantly, he did.

Through him, through them, I learned the truth. I wish I could fully explain the horror that I felt as they stacked up the facts of our lives like dominos, each word hurting just a little bit more. Sam felt the revulsion, shock, and terror of it, and experiencing it through his memory, so did I. I listened as my father and the others explained to Sam the reasons for the change, the truth about vampires and the curse a select number of our people still bear in our blood. At the same moment as Sam I came to realize that all the things I never quite believed in were, in fact, true and horrible.

Separately from Sam's own emotions, I so felt betrayed. My father had known about this and he didn't prepare me. But I also couldn't overlook the fact that the council spoke of the transformation as a male-only phenomenon, and I filed that away in my head for further thought later. I could barely deal with all the thoughts I was having now, not to mention the emotions. I felt Sam's intense anguish as he realized that this was not something he could turn off or escape from, ever. I felt how trapped he was, and I knew it was the same for me.

Quil's grandfather brought out something surprising then, a tattoo gun, and he loaded in a cartridge of pure black ink into it.

"What's that for?" Sam asked apprehensively.

"This is a ritual that was passed down to us from our own grandfathers," Billy explained. "Our fathers never had to use it, and neither have we- until now. We must do it before you can heal from it. This will be the last scar you ever have."

"What does that mean?" Sam asked as Quil's grandfather stood up and moved to the couch where Sam was sitting, settling down next to him. Sam eyed the machine with suspicion and so did I.

"You must wear the mark," my father told him.

"It is a sign of your bond to the land, and your commitment to always protect it," Billy added.

"Wait, so if I don't get the tattoo I can stay normal?" he asked hopefully, but I already knew the answer and so did he.

"The bond is there," Quil's grandfather said gently, as he pulled out some gauze and cleaned the outside of Sam's shoulder with it. "You cannot fight it." I felt the needle pulsing in and out of my own skin as he started to draw, and after he was done, I felt Sam's revulsion and disgust as he looked at the mark, as well as his deep, deep resignation.

The council rose to leave, and Sam stood with them. "Sir," he said, addressing my father. "Leah…" He left my name hanging in the air for a long moment, as though it was a question he wouldn't dare to fully ask.

I watched my father turn to him with a heavy heart. He put his hands on Sam's shoulders and said, "I love my daughter. But you are a different breed now, Sam. You've stopped aging, and being tied to a mortal- even her- will be difficult for you. And for Leah."

He took in this knowledge with control; after everything else, immortality seemed almost an afterthought- unimportant. "But I love her," he protested, and my heart swelled as I heard that, threatening to burst. "I need her," he added, his voice soft.

"You are, as of yet, a lone wolf," my father answered him. "The council will support you in any way we can. But you should think long and hard about whether it's fair to still be with her."

As they left him alone in his house, I felt his desperation but also his determination to stay with me. He loved me, so much. What had changed? How had we gotten to this place? I had assumed it was whatever he'd gone through in his absence that had made him stop loving me, but now I saw that wasn't the case at all.

_I'll explain that too,_ I heard Sam's gentle voice cut through my thoughts, and I looked at him. There was such sadness in his dark eyes, and I realized that reliving these memories were probably painful for him, too. But I couldn't let him stop.

I watched through his frustrated eyes as the days and weeks passed and he tried to still be my boyfriend, even while he held this terrible secret. I saw how he worried about hurting me, emotionally and physically, as more than once he lost his temper to a point that made his blood boil and he almost changed in front of me. I couldn't help but wonder how much easier it might have been if he had. Every night when he couldn't sleep he dreamed about telling me the truth, even though he knew he couldn't ever do that.

I saw how painfully, slowly, all the plans he'd had for our future gradually turned to despair. The more I tried to get close to him, to plead with him to tell me what was going on so I could be there for him, the more trapped he felt. He hated lying to me, hated having to stand me up or make up pitiful excuses about where he'd been, and he couldn't blame me for my rising anger. He knew the situation was spiraling out of control yet, like me, he thought if he could just hang on, we would figure out a way to get through this. Through it all, I saw how much he loved me.

Seeing all these events through his eyes, I couldn't help but be shocked. I had felt that I was so attentive, so loving and caring and supportive, during that time, and in a way I was… but I had been so blind to what was really going on. There were so many layers underneath his struggles that I'd had no idea about. Maybe I wasn't paying attention; maybe he'd been trying, desperately, to reach out to me and I had failed.

_No,_ Sam said, his voice in my mind almost pleading. _It's not your fault, Leah. Please don't think that._

_What am I supposed to think?_ I shot back.

_Just… try to be patient. I want to explain. At the end of this you'll understand how innocent you are._

His words made me apprehensive, but I let him continue. I watched, as Sam took to running through the forests at night and sleeping all day, to watch out for vampires. He never actually found one in those early days, but he learned the scents of nomads who were passing through the land, and he learned to scan the news for suspicious deaths that seemed to relate to their activities. I experienced his dismay as my own as we realized together that not only were vampires real, but they were everywhere.

He started to think that he was even crazier than he'd been when he'd first transformed. He was certain that five of the kids enrolled at Forks High School were vampires, too. He went to the council about it and, reluctantly, they told him everything.

I felt his deep sadness as he was told that Jacob Black had been expected to make this change first, and that he was the rightful heir to the throne of his great-grandfather Ephraim Black, who had led the pack almost a hundred years ago. They had all be dismayed, they told him gently, when the first to make the shift in generations had been the son of Joshua Uley. I felt my heart breaking for Sam who was being told, once again, that his father had left a stain on his reputation that was beyond his control. I felt Sam's anger at that, but also his determination to prove them wrong, to prove that he could be responsible and a leader, too. But there was also hope there, hope that, if Jacob Black changed, Sam could hand over the reigns and step away from all of this.

Then they told him about the Treaty. Sam was angry to learn that there was a whole coven of vampires that he couldn't touch, even though every bone in his body ached to destroy them. Apparently, he couldn't touch them because they only ate animals, and unless they either set foot in La Push or bit a human, they were off-limits, and he wasn't allowed to reveal what they really were, either. He was somewhat comforted by the fact that they couldn't come on the Rez, but he liked Jacob's bloodline a little bit less after that. Grudgingly, he accepted the terms of the Treaty, but I could feel how much he felt like he didn't have a choice. Trapped- again.

Sam glossed over the next few weeks, and I was grateful- I knew those times would primarily be characterized by the same things that we'd already experienced: my pain, our growing rift, and his struggle. It was hard, and I didn't want to see it if I didn't have to. Then, two days before my eighteenth birthday, he slowed the images down again to show me something else.

He was on the phone. I recognized my father's voice on the other end of the line as he said into Sam's ear, "Paul's had a fever for three days. It looks like it's close to breaking."

Oh, the gravity of hearing that hit us so hard. Sam felt so many things in that moment- pity, worry, hope, and elation. He saw his isolation coming to an end, but at the same time his heart broke for what he knew Paul was going through, and what he was about to go through. But his overall feeling was one of determination- a determination to make this easier on Paul and anyone else that came along than it had been on him. He also argued with my father, saying that the Treaty should be abandoned because it was forcing other boys to change, and how could he protect the tribe if he couldn't even prevent that? But my father just told him he was sorry, and hung up.

I recognized that firm resolve in Sam immediately. It was one of his best features, a hard, self-sacrificing will that put the needs of others before his own and made him want to protect those people that were vulnerable. I had always thought he would make a great brother because of these traits, and it seemed that that was what he wanted for himself and Paul.

He had forgotten my birthday that year. Now I knew why, and the tears and anger I'd had about it at the time seemed so childish suddenly. I'd had no idea he had the weight of the world on his shoulders, or that he'd stood me up on my birthday because he'd been guiding a terrified boy through the most profound change of his life. Through Paul's fever and shift, through all the explanations and guidance, my birthday had slipped Sam's mind; could I really blame him for that? The bond that formed between Sam and Paul during that time was touching, and for once I saw that some happiness could come from the transformation, as I witnessed their excitement as for the first time the two of them realized they could hear each other's thoughts. They hadn't really ever been close before this, but now they had a bond that transcended everything else. They were truly brothers.

Now, again, finally, he took me back to that same memory from earlier. Sam was at First Beach, helping to light a big bonfire where we would roast hot dogs and marshmallows later. I watched him standing apart from the others, not feeling like he could really join in, fully, ever again, but at the same time struggling to appear normal. I also saw him paying closer attention to a particular few boys, the descendants of Ephraim's pack and those others that would be expected to change, should more vampires cross our lands. He watched them with a mixture of hope and terrible pity.

I watched him see me drive up, and through his eyes I saw how beautiful he found me as I got out of my car. I still felt confused, knowing that within three weeks of this night our relationship would end. I kept waiting to feel contempt, fear, or even a protective feeling that had led him to leave me, but in every memory he'd shown me so far, he felt nothing but unconditional love for me. It didn't fit with what I knew was coming.

Suddenly, the image cut off, again right before Emily got out of the car. _Maybe we should stop there,_ Sam thought to me, and even though there was no sound I could hear the uncertainly in his voice.

_No, I want to see the rest,_ I answered stubbornly. _I need to know, Sam._

I could tell that he was hesitant, but tentatively, he continued.

Emily got out of the car, but Sam's eyes were on me. I blushed inwardly as I watched him trace the curve of my hips and the swell of my breasts through my clothing as I approached him, and I knew he believed that I was more beautiful than any girl he'd ever seen, or ever would see. As I reached him he took my hand in one of his and traced the curve of my cheekbone with the other, catching me behind my head to pull me into his lips. I experienced kissing myself through his eyes and body, which was incredibly strange, and with his fingers I held my own hand. He loved me then, but I was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Then he saw my cousin. Strangely, this memory felt more real than any other I had witnessed so far. It was like everything he'd showed me had been black and white, and suddenly, she was colour. I felt myself- or him- stop breathing. It was as though she was glowing, as though some kind of ethereal light emanated from her body and shone outward to him and only him. I was shocked by the instantaneous love that shot through his body in response to her presence, but not just love… worship wasn't even a strong enough word. As I looked at her through Sam's eyes, my knees went weak and I felt so many things- for a moment I forgot my own life, and I realized that everything up to this point, everything I'd ever felt or experienced, was meaningless. I felt my body shaking with a profound, deep fear at how I could have lived before this moment, how I could have carried on with my life never knowing that she existed. Everything about her was perfect, and I felt as though I'd been living in a cave all my life and had finally emerged into sunlight by accident, never having known its warmth.

The intensity of Sam's attraction bowled me over- but attraction is such a pale word to describe it. I don't believe there is a word in any language for the things he felt for her. He would have stolen, killed, or even died, willingly, immediately, if it meant one moment of happiness for this girl. He ached to know her name, to hear her voice, which he already knew would be the most beautiful sound in the world, and to touch her skin. He wanted to protect her from anyone and anything that threatened to harm her, and he wanted to love her and give her everything she could ever want.

It was incredibly difficult to witness. But not just witness- _feel._ I felt his every ounce of love for her and found that even 'love' wasn't a good enough word to describe this. A new language should be written just to describe these feelings; only no language could ever be sacred enough. The human mind could never have the capacity, depth, or intelligence to describe the connection that Sam felt to Emily. And even though I knew these thoughts and emotions were Sam's alone, it was hard to separate them from mine. I felt, in those moments, that my cousin was a goddess, something otherworldly, and I had somehow just never noticed before.

Though Sam was still holding my hand, it was like a thing gone dead. Even his body ached for Emily, and the carnality with which he wanted her shocked me. It wasn't that he didn't love me, but that love- like eating and breathing- seemed inconsequential in the face of her. It faded away to nothing when compared to the depth and breadth of his commitment to Emily. Everything was right in the world as long as she was in it, and Sam knew for a fact that he would die if ever she were taken from him.

I watched myself walk away to talk to a friend, oblivious to what had just happened, and for the first time I saw a part of this night that I hadn't before. I watched, sick to my stomach, as Sam flirted with my cousin, trying to sweet-talk her, desperate just to hear her voice, and to have her like him. I watched the confusion and disgust just under Emily's polite but uncomfortable expression as they talked. I experienced real panic as he realized she didn't seem interested in him, and I felt his urgency as he redoubled his efforts, so that she might find him charming and interesting. It was difficult to watch, to experience, as he tried, almost pathetically, to make himself seem like someone Emily would want without knowing the first thing about her. That lack of knowledge made him deeply afraid.

Even when she excused herself to find me, he couldn't keep his eyes off her for the rest of the night. It was a struggle just to stay away from her, to keep from being with her every moment, from ensuring that their hands 'accidentally' grazed, or that he would be the first to anticipate her needs- to get her food, or drink. Anything would have been better than watching her from a distance, but he managed to restrain himself. And because she stood next to me all evening, no one thought anything of it. Sam barely noticed me all night. I remembered that later Emily had told me, without giving any details, that Sam had given her the creeps. I had apologized for him, but I'd had no idea then that this was what she'd been talking about.

I could feel Sam hesitating about going further, not wanting to hurt me, but I already knew the ending, and what could hurt worse than that? So I pushed at his mind, forcing him into sharing the rest. It was like a horrible car wreck- you don't want to see the blood and the pain but you can't help but look. I had to know. I had to understand this.

I was surprised to find Sam meeting with my father the next day, and confessing his feelings for Emily. I watched my father's face, watched his distress for my sake, and then his resignation. Then he explained imprinting to Sam, explained to him that, like the shift, this would be a part of him for the rest of his life. That he would feel lost and depressed if he wasn't in Emily's presence, and that he would want almost nothing more from life than her happiness. My father told him that I could never be as important to him as she was now. I watched Sam rage against this knowledge, watched him beg for a way to change it, to imprint on me instead of Emily, but my father only said no, it wasn't possible, the body finds the perfect mate and after that there is no way out. I was touched that he cared enough to wish that things could be different, but even as Sam pleaded for an alternative, I could see his mind already at work about how to trade me for Emily, and how to minimize the damage for all involved.

So, Sam hadn't grown to hate me. I didn't do something to make him stop loving me, I didn't frustrate him with one too many fights, and not even the weight of his secret was enough to tear us apart. It had been this, this _imprinting,_ this most irrational aspect of our change that had simply turned off his love for me, like a light switch. I was suddenly terrified about whether that was going to happen to me, too, whether I would lose all sense and reason and devote myself, puppy-eyed, to some boy I wouldn't have looked twice at before. For a moment, I let go of my scorn long enough to wonder if that wouldn't make this whole thing easier… it would. But still, the idea gave me the creeps. I was stronger than that. If I was going to ever fall in love again I wanted it to be on my terms.

I couldn't help but feel deeply inadequate. Why _hadn't_ Sam been able to imprint on me? And why was I the only woman who had ever made this change in the history of the tribe? What was wrong with me? My immediate thought was that perhaps my parents had lied to me my whole life, and I'd actually been born a boy, and through some terrible accident they had changed my gender, but Sam's genes knew the difference. But I knew that wasn't really the case- I had all the right parts, I had gone through normal puberty, I menstruated. So what was wrong with me? Why was I so different? And what about that difference had made Sam's body turn away from me and find that perfect mate in my own cousin?

I felt like such an outsider, like I was toeing a line between two worlds, and I would never really belong in either one. My femininity felt like a lie; I felt like a freak, too masculine to be a suitable mate for Sam, too girly to be a wolf. I didn't feel like a pioneer as the first female werewolf, I felt like a mistake of nature- an outsider. I felt so deeply alone in that moment, and my grief at losing Sam washed over me with the same strength as it had when I had first experienced that loss. I didn't want to live my life this way anymore, the worth of Leah measured against the failure of our relationship. I had thought I was passed all this, yet seeing it all again, through his eyes, freshened the wounds and left me bereft once more.

_You have to let it go,_ his voice rippled through my mind, as though carried there on a gentle breeze. _You did nothing wrong in this, Leah. I loved you so much until that moment… if I had a choice in it, I'd love you now._

I knew he was telling me the truth. But it didn't make it any easier.


	11. Chapter 10

**Author's Note: **I know you guys are used to daily (or at least every couple of days) updates, so I'm sorry this one took so long. Between buying a car and gearing up for a really intense second semester at school which starts in two days, I've been a bit busy this past week! But I will try my hardest to keep updating this story more frequently. Hope you like this chapter. :)

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I had taken in a lot, and the images of all the ugly truths he'd shown me were still swirling around in my head. But I could feel his hesitation, and I knew there was something else he wanted to show me, something that was more terrible than everything I'd already seen. I could feel his deep sadness as the images started up again, mixed with shame, and also a raw ache that told me this next memory would be harder to convey than to witness. So I steeled myself, and let him go on.

He moved us forward in time, skirting over much of his courtship of Emily, and skipping the details of how he had come to my house when I wasn't there, bringing her gifts, leaving her flowers, promising her a lifetime of happiness if only she would give him one chance. I did see fleeting glimpses of these moments as he hurried through those weeks, though, and I saw how hard Emily had resisted. I saw, briefly, our breakup, but he avoided it so insistently that it was only a passing impression of heartache and guilt. I also saw what he was doing when he wasn't obsessing over Emily, and I watched as other boys in the community changed, and Sam helped each of them to understand what was happening to them as no one had done for him. I saw the bonds growing between Sam and those boys as though they were tangible, something I could actually see.

Finally, he slowed the images down again. I recognized his house, and felt his nerves as he paced the floor of his bedroom quickly, back and forth, waiting. The doorbell rang and he couldn't run fast enough to answer it. Emily stood there, which surprised me, and he let her in eagerly. I couldn't work out when this might be, aside from the fact that it was evening.

I felt Sam's excitement, but it immediately turned to disappointment as she turned to him and said, "Sam, you have to stop coming over and calling me. I love Leah… and she loves you. The Sam she always told me about would never have treated her this way. I'm not going to be the other woman in this and I'm not going to break my cousin's heart."

"I know," he'd whispered, and I felt the shame wash through him. "I know. I wish… I could explain. To Leah and to you."

"Well you don't have to," Emily told him. "I'm going back home next week. So you'd better just forget about me, Sam."

I felt the panic rise in him. I had never felt fear so intensely in my life. I felt like she was going to die, like he believed that _he_ would die if she left this room now. But she was already heading for the door. I watched as Sam quickly intercepted her, trying to take her hand, pleading with her not to go. He blurted out that he loved her and her mouth dropped open. They barely knew each other then.

"Sam Uley," she said, shaking her head. "You're disgusting."

"Please," he begged, so unlike my Sam. "Please don't go." It was hard for me to watch this, feel his desperation, and understand, truly, how much this imprinting had changed almost everything about him.

"I'm going," she said, and I detected, for the first time, just a tiny bit of fear creep into her voice.

"Then I'll come with you," he said quickly.

"What?" She stared at him. "No way!"

"Don't you like me? Isn't there… isn't there any way you could like me?" I thought he was going to cry; I could feel the tears welling up in his throat, threatening to choke him as Emily just stared at him in building horror. Slowly, tentatively, not knowing how he could handle another moment of rejection from this perfect being, yet unable to resist her, Sam reached out a hand. He didn't quite touch her, but I could feel how desperately he wanted to. He felt like he might die if he didn't touch her, if she walked away right now.

My cousin has always been kind. She was probably as confused as anyone about this situation. I could only imagine what she was thinking- that he was crazy, some kind of psychopath, a stalker that her cousin was lucky to have escaped. But even still, I could see that she didn't want to hurt him. I watched her shake her head slowly as she said gently, "No, Sam… not in this lifetime. Maybe if things had been different… but not like this. Never."

Suddenly, I felt the tears change in Sam's chest. I felt the anger build, and like a match to gasoline his grief ignited into rage. His body didn't even have time to ripple or shake as his form shifted to that of a wolf in a single moment of blinding fury. His hand was still extended towards her when it happened. I saw those razor-sharp claws rake her face, catching in the skin near her hairline and ripping downward as his arm lengthened into a massive paw. Before he even had time to realize what had happened she was falling to the floor, unconscious, the right side of her face a bloody, ragged mess. Her eye bulged from the side of her socket and the blood was already thick on the carpet beneath her head, her cheek torn and ragged, the right side of her mouth pulled open gruesomely.

_Oh God,_ I heard one of those familiar voices, panicked, and for a second I was confused, thinking they were interrupting us here and now, but then I realized the voices were in Sam's head, in the past, in this moment.

_We're coming,_ a second voice appeared. Through Sam's eyes, I looked down at the broken body of my cousin, and even though I knew for a fact that she had lived through this, with Sam's eyes I believed her to be dead, and I believed myself to be a murderer. And what was more, I felt what it was like to have killed the most important person in my life, because that was what Emily had become for Sam, as much as it hurt me to see. The last thing I experienced was running into the forest before he moved on from this memory, trying to skirt past the agony of relieving those moments. I got the impression he was out in the woods for a very long time.

_They told me she was mauled by a bear,_ I thought, when he had finally calmed down from his own memories. I remembered my own grief then, my sympathy for Emily's condition, but this was so much worse than what I ever could have imagined. Permanently scarred, and not by a bear at all, but by Sam, who before all this could have never hurt a fly. Suddenly I thought of Seth, and I felt sick- what if he had come to my room a few moments earlier? Would I have done the same thing? It surely would have killed him, a blow like that to his small frame. It was amazing that it didn't kill Emily.

Sam heard my thoughts and answered, _No. It wouldn't have killed him._ He could feel my skepticism and so, gently, he showed me something else.

Through Sam's eyes I saw myself, sleeping in bed, in the depths of my fever, and I realized that this was only yesterday, or maybe two days ago. I saw him turn away from my room and walk out of the house, out into the woods, where a small, sandy-coloured wolf waited patiently on its haunches. Something about this wolf seemed familiar, and I couldn't help but smile internally at its sweet face and warm eyes… familiar eyes.

_Oh God… no!_ I thought suddenly, panic gripping my heart.

_Yes,_ Sam answered me gently.

My own horror overwhelmed me as I realized who I was looking at, and sure enough, a moment later the small wolf changed back into the body of the boy I know and love so well. I watched as he grinned at Sam, but I felt none of the excitement about this as I knew Seth did. This was horrible.

_I knew he was going to change when the fever set in,_ Sam explained, his thoughts gentle and soft against mine. _But your father was adamant that your fever was something else._ He seemed to hesitate before continuing, _It's never happened to a girl. Not in hundreds of years._

That same thought came back to me again, _What's wrong with me, then?_

_Nothing,_ Sam answered. Maybe I was imagining it, but he didn't seem to completely believe his own words. But for now, I let it go. This was too much. I was completely overwhelmed.

_Sam… I can't stay in my room for a week,_ I told him. I no longer believed I was insane, but staying in this small bedroom for that long might easily drive me there. And I worried about Seth, if he needed me.

_You won't,_ he promised. _I'll help you._

_This doesn't make us friends again,_ I warned him.

I thought I could feel his sigh as he said again, _I know._

A long silence passed between us, not exactly comfortable or uncomfortable, before I had to ask, tentatively,_ Is he okay?_

I was sent a barrage of images then- Sam watching over Seth when he was still so sick with fever, taking him out into the woods when the fever broke, Seth raging against Sam and Paul as they tried to prepare him for what was going to happen and then, finally, watching as my little brother's fever broke and he made that first terrifying transformation. I witnessed the tenderness with which Sam explained things to my brother, and I felt, for the first time, Seth's mind, the purity and youth of it, the sweet presence of his thoughts. I could see and feel that my brother was happy, proud of becoming this, a warrior and a protector, and that he was not afraid. Despite my own fears about this, I was glad.

_There's more,_ Sam told me. _But I think you've had enough tonight._

This time, I trusted his judgment, and I didn't push further or try to discover the rest of his secrets. I was exhausted, and laid down right there on the floor, barely able to keep my eyes open. I don't know how long it had taken Sam to show me all that he had, but it felt like I hadn't slept in days. I was still starving, but my need for sleep overwhelmed all else, and as I watched Sam settle down just outside my bedroom door, my eyes fluttered closed and I let sleep pull me down into a place without dreams.

* * *

I slept the sleep of the dead, certainly for hours, possibly for days. When I awoke, I found myself alone in my bed, tucked into the blankets. I was so comfortable and my brain was so foggy that it took me a long time to remember what had happened. Quickly I shot up in bed, and that's when I realized I was human again, naked; I could see through the window that it was probably the middle of the day, but my house was quiet.

I wrapped myself in my sheet and tiptoed to my bedroom door, listening. Nothing. I had this crazy idea that it had all been a dream, and for a few moments I was almost sure of it. But when I fell over Sam on my way to the kitchen, who was sprawled out in the hallway, still in wolf form, I knew with dismay that everything I remembered was true. He sprung up onto his feet and shifted into human form before my eyes- it only took a split-second, but it was still incredible. I could hardly believe he was capable of that, that I was, and trying to imagine what the biological processes behind it might be made my head hurt. I kept my eyes on his face to spare him embarrassment for his nudity and gave him a small smile. It actually seemed strange to be looking at him without hearing his thoughts, and I realized how much deeper our level of communication had been in wolf form. When he looked at me he seemed almost like a cardboard cutout now: flat.

"How are you feeling?" he asked me. The warmth and depth of his voice was so familiar, and I'd heard it so rarely in the past few months, that it took away some of that flat feeling right away.

"How long was I sleeping?"

"Almost two days," he answered. "You must have been pretty relaxed- enough to shift back this morning. I put you in bed."

"You've been here this whole time?" I asked suspiciously.

"No. I've been back and forth."

"Where are my parents?"

Sam didn't answer me. Instead he asked gently, "Do you still have any of my stuff? I think this is a conversation that calls for clothing."

I grew fearful, but I tried to focus on preparing myself for whatever was coming. I turned back into my bedroom and searched through my drawers, finding a pair of his boxers and an old shirt, soft with age. I had worn these clothes several times in the weeks after our breakup, but I had washed them since, and I certainly wouldn't have admitted that to him. I handed them to him and turned my back as he dressed, searching through the drawers for something of my own.

I knew I was going to hear something I didn't like; from Sam's reaction to my question, I suspected that my parents knew about what had happened to Seth and I and were upset or angry about it. Maybe they had left town to cool off. That would explain my parents' absence all through Sam's explanations and my coma-like sleeping.

Once we were both dressed, I followed Sam through my kitchen and into the living room, where he sat us down on the couch, sitting a little too close for my comfort. He surprised me by taking my hand in his.

"What's happened?" I asked, my heart going cold. This was something worse than I'd imagined… what was it?

He hesitated. "Leah… I don't know how to tell you this," he said softly.

"Then just tell me," I answered quickly. "The anticipation is bad enough… please."

"Harry had a heart attack," he said bluntly, following my wishes. "Your mother's been at the hospital since just after you changed. But Leah… your father died last night."

For a long moment I had no idea what to do. Slowly I sank back into the soft cushions of the couch but otherwise I was motionless. I was amazed that my overwhelming feeling wasn't of shock, anger, or even grief, but a deep confusion, disbelief even. I almost didn't believe Sam's words. I couldn't imagine that they could be true, that the world now existed without him. I couldn't imagine what that looked like: my father, the strongest man I ever knew, felled to something my mother always teased him about, a weak heart brought on by poor food choices and bad cholesterol. But what if that wasn't why at all? What if there was another reason?

"I'm so sorry, Leah," Sam told me softly.

"How?" I asked, and my voice sounded hollow even to my ears.

"He collapsed."

"When?"

"Two days ago," he answered, and I caught the hesitation in his voice. Was that what it was, then? Had my father seen his daughter as something he had so much trouble accepting that the shock had taken his life? Was I the cause of this? What had he really been afraid of when he'd looked at me in the throes of fever? What thoughts had gone through his mind when he saw me forever changed? I would never know. I could never ask him those questions now.

"Seth," I said. It seemed I could only manage single-syllables now, but just whispering my brother's name broke my heart. I couldn't decide which was worse: that he knew, and I hadn't been there to receive that news with him, or that he didn't, and I would have to see his face as he learned that the man he idolized and adored had left him forever. As if he hadn't lost enough this week. As if it was fair that things could get worse for him. I wanted to rage against whatever force had made us like this, and stolen so much from our lives.

"He's on his way back here now," Sam answered me. "I had him at the Black's, but I sent Jake a text to send him back while you were getting dressed."

"Where's my mother?" I asked, stringing a number of words together for the first time since I'd learned of my father's death.

"She's at Jake's as well," he answered, and I was glad for that. My mother and Billy were friends, and she would need support in a time like this, support that Seth and I couldn't give her. But it did answer my unspoken question: Seth knew. "She's going to stay there for now," Sam continued. Again I saw him hesitate. "Leah… you can't tell her."

I nodded numbly. After everything, this seemed like a small request, and it didn't surprise me that he asked it. Besides, how _could_ I tell her? What words were there to explain something like this? And how much would it hurt her? Would it shock her into death, too? I knew it was childish to think that way, but I still couldn't stop the thought from popping into my mind.

Sam was still holding my hand. I only noticed because he gave it a squeeze, and for a long moment I stared at our hands together, hardly believing that they could still be real. Outside, life was proceeding normally- I could hear birds chirping, clouds were moving across the sky, and everything was still exactly the same as it had been before. It was crazy to think that the world should change because one man was dead, and yet the fact that it didn't still managed to surprise me.

I pulled my hand back from Sam's, and I looked him in the eyes for the first time in what seemed like hours.

"Is there anything I can do?" he asked me gently, those eyes full of sympathy and warmth. I wanted him to hold me, to gather me in his arms like a child and hug me close to his body so I could cry and grieve in a safe place. But I knew I couldn't have that; it wasn't something he could give me, and it wasn't something I had a right to expect.

"I need time to absorb all of this," I told him, one word tumbling from my mouth after the other with great difficulty. "Seth is going to be here soon?"

"Should be any minute," he promised. "We run fast in wolf form."

"I know," I answered, remembering Sam's memories of running through the woods with such speed it seemed like he was blurring. "You should go."

"Leah-" He started, but if I let him protest, then I'd let him stay. I put my fingers on his lips, just to physically stop him from saying anything more, and he fell silent. My Sam would have kissed my fingertips; this one stared at me with the most platonic loving worry imaginable. But for once it didn't hurt me, and it didn't make me angry.

"Please," I said. "I want you to go. This is a family moment… I need to be here for Seth when he gets home."

Finally he nodded before standing up, and then he hesitated for a brief second before he reached out and brushed my hair back from my face. I welcomed the gesture; despite the lack of romance in the way we interacted now, I did feel that a huge change had happened between us. I had seen into his mind, and he into mine. Things could never be as they once were, but we were now sharing a newfound intimacy, one whose gravity was still catching up to me. But I didn't have time to focus on that now. I had just enough energy for the one thing that mattered- Seth. I couldn't have Sam lingering here, distracting me from my little brother's needs. And I knew how much he would need me.

Sam was gone less than a minute before the front door opened and I heard the rush of footsteps in my direction. I barely had a chance to turn my head before he had barreled into me, throwing himself into my arms. I wrapped them around him, surprised that he wore nothing more than a pair of cut-off jeans, not even shoes. We held each other for a long time before I found his face and looked at him. I could see the loss in his eyes, and it mirrored my own. I couldn't stop my tears then, even though I wanted to be strong for him, but his eyes spilled over almost in unison with mine and we clung to each other again, each of us holding the other equally.

I feel pity for any child raised alone, because I know that there is a bond between siblings that those children will never understand. No matter how much you hate each other at times, or fight and squabble with one another, a sibling is like a secret, or a promise, that you will never walk the path of your childhood alone. It's a guarantee that your formative years were concurrently spent forming someone else, and that through that uniquely shared history you will truly understand your sibling as you could never understand anyone else.

Even the most different of brothers and sisters share an ineffable bond of being raised in the same place, with the same parents, witnessing each other's crimes and passions from a unique position of equality that no other might inhabit. In the end, your sibling is the only one who truly knows where you came from, and in the end, when you have grown old enough to have become a natural orphan, your sibling is the only one who, like a fellow veteran, walked beside you through the battles and victories of your life.

In that moment, as I held my little brother in my arms and we cried into each other's shoulders, the value of our kinship seemed so profound. I cherished him so much in that moment, because of this knowledge: I was not the only one who had suffered this exact loss. Though my mother and my father's friends and our extended family would share my grief, Seth was the only one who could walk beside me in the loss of Harry Clearwater, our father.


	12. Chapter 11

I barely remember most of my father's funeral. Part of that had to do with shock, I'm sure, and the numbness of grief. I still didn't quite believe he was dead, and though I stood and listened to the people that described him and told stories about what a great man he was, I felt hollow, as though none of it really mattered. I tried to be there for my mother as much as I could, but all my life she had been strong and independent, and even in the face of this it seemed like she was refusing to break. So I turned my attention to Seth, who wasn't ashamed to let the tears roll down his cheeks as various people who had loved my father took their turn to speak. I put my arm around his shoulders and let him lean on me for support, but I could not make myself cry, even though part of me wanted to. Maybe I was too overwhelmed with it all.

Standing there at the gravesite, holding onto Seth like an anchor, I found myself lost in my own mind even as I tried to focus on what was being said. I couldn't seem to stay present. My mind kept traveling backward, obsessing over the last few days, and all that I had seen and learned and felt in that time. It seemed like a lifetime's worth of experiences had taken place in just a few short weeks, and I felt like I could have slept for days if only I was given the chance. Instead, I was busier than I'd ever been in my life.

With half an ear, I listened as people spoke of my father's wisdom, his belief in the traditions, his patience, and his sense of humour. I listened to friends and relatives describe the love he held for his family, us, without really connecting to the words. The only thing that felt real was my arm around my brother's shoulders, but even that didn't quite feel like it was really part of me. Everything seemed somehow dulled… the sounds, the faces, even the smell of cedar burning, a scent which I usually found rich and soothing. Since my father's death, since the shift, everything had changed.

'Shift' was the word I came to use to describe my profound transformation, because it was more than a transformation, more than a simple change or event in my life. The word 'shift' implied a deep alteration in everything, yet it also implied subtlety, and that was the world I was living in now. My life was completely different, yet to nearly everyone, I was the same. It was an eerie feeling, and I'd come to understand very well why Sam had thought he was crazy when he'd first made the shift. If I'd been doing this alone, I certainly would have.

In wolf form, I was almost never alone. That had been the first thing that had overwhelmed me, but Sam was smart enough to have ordered everyone back to human form at first. That way, he was able to share that long story of my own past with me, all the things I'd never seen, in such a way that I could actually absorb it without my head exploding. Then, slowly, he'd allowed the others to introduce their minds to me. Despite their caution, it was an intense experience. I was shocked to be given such naked insight into their minds, and I couldn't stop myself from knowing everything about them, almost in a single instant. I learned their individual voices, but I also learned their pasts, their hopes, and their dreams.

Even my brother, who I thought I knew fairly well, was like a new person to me, and I felt so close to him after that. The near-instantaneous deepening of our relationship, as well as the relationships I built, basically from scratch, with the others in the space of a day, was amazing. When I came back to myself I found with surprise that I loved them all. I still loved Seth the most, but there was a strong, visceral connection between all of us. They may as well have been my brothers too, given the closeness we shared.

My initial fascination and excitement about the whole process was soon tempered by disappointment as I realized there was no way to shut off the connection. There were ways, by concentrating, to project certain images and memories through the connection, as Sam had done for me, but there was no way to hold anything back. My life, my memories, my feelings, were all up for grabs. It was an incredible intrusion, as I had always prided myself on being a private person who dealt with things internally. Now my mind was constantly being witnessed, explored, and examined by six boys, one of whom was my ex-boyfriend, and one of whom was my brother. I realized with panic that all the thoughts and feelings and knowledge that I had worked to keep from my brother would now exist, basically, at his fingertips, and as soon as I realized _that,_ I didn't want to change anymore. Only I couldn't stop.

There were drawbacks to my connection with the others, too. Sometimes I overheard things I didn't want to, especially their doubts and confusion and sometimes even scorn about my transformation as a female, as though I had crashed their all-boys club on purpose. They didn't know quite what to make of me. Everything became a problem: they had taken for granted that they would constantly see each other naked because of the logistics of transformation, but now that I was in the equation things became very awkward. They also seemed unable to make up their minds about whether they wanted to flirt with me, shun me, or opt for a mixture of both.

Sam's constant thoughts of Emily were the most difficult. Not only did I have to listen to his incessant love for her, but his feelings also started to infect my mind and make me feel some of the same emotions for her. It was terribly confusing and it wasn't easy, especially the first few times I changed, to separate my own thoughts from theirs. It wasn't like a camera where I could watch a memory and think to myself, _oh, I'm seeing something through Jared's eyes now;_ it was more like the memory was my own, only I'd forgotten it up to now. It was jarring and frightening, to be so certain that something had happened to me that I knew couldn't possibly be true, yet over and over again I felt that way. I kept second-guessing my own life, losing my grip on what were my own truths, trying to pinpoint the place where I ended and each of them began.

Maybe that's why I felt so cut off from my father's funeral. Some of the people who spoke knew not only my father, but also the parents of my new brothers, and even they had also known my father. Memories I had never owned before swirled through my mind: conversations between my father and Sam, his presence at each of their initiations, and private moments he'd shared with Seth. I felt as though I was intruding on all these things, yet they existed in symbiosis with my own experiences, and I had to concentrate incredibly hard to separate what was my own and what wasn't. Even to attempt to compartmentalize was exhausting.

If the telepathic connection we shared had persisted into human form, I don't think I could have survived it without some kind of mental breakdown. But it was still terrifying, and every time I changed back I was horror-stricken at the idea that I might lose something in transition, or accidentally swap a memory with one of theirs and never know that it wasn't always mine. But each time, as far as I knew, I came back whole, and they promised that those fears would fade as I got used to being like this. Still, it wasn't easy. Most people think of a connection like this as the ability of one person to look into the mind of another, to read thoughts and speak through the brain, but it's much more than that. It's living, simultaneously, as many people, and hard work not to forget who you really are.

In wolf form, I wasn't standing at a window, looking through a pane of glass into one of their minds. I was in a different place, as though I was standing in a physical space just big enough for one person, but with many people standing in it, overlapping. We weren't each in our own minds, with some sort of branch connecting us all; instead, we inhabited the same plane, the same mind, no bigger or smaller than each of our separate minds, but all of existing there together. Things were bound to get confused, or out of order. It was amazing that our brains knew, somehow, how to withdraw properly from that communal mind so that each of us remained the same person on the other side, again and again.

The funeral ended, it seemed to me, only moments after it had begun. I hadn't been expected to speak, and so my zombie-like presence at the gravesite had gone unnoticed, or at least unmentioned. Numbly, I accepted hugs and words of comfort as people filed past us, murmuring thanks to them for coming, internally shaking my head at the strange rituals we constructed in times of grief. The only people I felt real warmth for were the others from the pack. I'm ashamed to say I didn't accept a hug from my own grandmother as thankfully as I did from those boys. The connection had been formed, as real as concrete, cementing us together forever. I couldn't deny it. And in that moment, I didn't want to.

Embry and Paul came to my family first, and I watched as they each in turn shook my brother's hand gravely, which was exactly what he would have wanted: to be treated as a man in this situation, and not a boy. Then they stood in front of me. I was surprised that they didn't actually say a word to me. Embry just reached out, taking my hand and looking into my eyes, and I knew everything he might have said just from that look, because I knew him. I smiled at him, and then smiled at Paul, who reached out and pinched my upper arm before they moved off. I looked after them with as much warmth as I might have had if we'd spoken for two hours about my loss. Quil and Jared filed past me next, the jokesters of our pack, only they were quite serious now. One after the other they hugged first Seth, and then me, and then they moved away from us, as wordlessly as the others had.

Jacob felt the need to speak to me, but I wasn't surprised. He was far more talkative than the other four anyway, particularly when it came to emotions. He told Seth the usual things that people say- how proud my father had been of him, how much he would miss him, but he said those things with such empathy and sincerity that I knew he meant every word. When he stopped in front of me he smiled sadly at me and said, "Leah."

"Jacob," I said back to him. It was the first word I'd spoken in what seemed like many hours.

"Will I see you tonight?" he asked me. He meant was I coming out with the rest of them, running around in the woods, or 'patrolling' as Sam liked to call it, probably because it sounded much more important that way.

"No, I'm going to stay in," I said, and caught Seth's eye, not missing the relief that flooded his features. "Seth too," I added with a small smile. "We need some family time.'

"Fair enough," Jacob answered. Then I watched as he went to my mother and took her hand, expressing his apologies and condolences to her, which she took with a brave smile, as she had taken every hardship I had witnessed thus far in her lifetime. I had some problems with Jacob, particulary with the company he kept, but I had to say that he could be extremely sweet and thoughtful at times. After ensuring that my mother was alright, he moved off to join the others.

Sam came to me last. He and my brother had definitely put any differences our breakup had caused well behind them since Seth's shift. Sam hugged him, and even though almost anyone else doing that at a time like this would have made my brother turn away, face flaming, he hugged Sam back tightly, taking comfort from his strong embrace. Looking at them, I couldn't help thinking that, in another life, they would have been brothers-in-law. Sam would have held my hand through this day, supporting me, fielding the well wishings of strangers and family alike, and I would have been grateful for it.

Without him, I'd had to do all that alone. Yet with him, Seth would have been the one to have done it alone, and I probably wouldn't even have noticed. That was the window that opened when Sam closed the door on our relationship, and I couldn't say that I regretted it. I accepted his sympathetic arms around me now with real warmth. Never again would he be in love with me… but never again would that cause me heartache, either. He was now something different: a brother, a friend, closer to me, in many ways, than my own skin. It wasn't better, but it wasn't worse either. I found, with some surprise, that I could actually accept it.

"Your father was a great man," Sam told me. "I respected him, and I owed him a lot."

"He cared about you," I answered.

"He cared about you, too," he countered, and I had to smile, because even now Sam knew exactly what I was thinking. I put my arms around his neck and he held me close for a long time, not the embrace of a boyfriend but the loving arms of a caring friend. It was enough. It was better than enough.

* * *

I opted to sit in the back seat with my brother on the drive home. My mother was chatting about work and school, saying anything to keep from mentioning my father or his funeral, being forcibly optimistic; she did this not only for our sakes, but for her own sake too, I'm sure. Seth and I both tuned her out, though she didn't seem to notice, and though he and I didn't touch or speak the entire ride home, I knew my presence was as comforting to him as his was to me.

Suddenly something my mother was saying registered with me. "What?" I asked, and beside me Seth jumped. My mother's voice had become background noise, but mine was a jolt to him.

"I said that the council approached me about your father's seat."

"What about it?"

"It's tradition that when a person… passes… their council seat goes to a family member."

"Are you going to take it?" I asked warily.

She didn't say anything for a moment. Finally she said softly, "Yes. I think your father would want that."

I took in this knowledge slowly: my mother was going to find out._ Is _that something my father would have wanted? It seemed like he'd worked hard to keep that secret from her. From me, too, and if I hadn't changed I would have no idea what was going on with Seth.

"Congratulations, Mom," my brother said, forcing his voice to sound cheery. I looked at him sadly. With my eyes I told him he didn't have to do that, didn't have to pretend to be okay if he wasn't. That's not what I wanted for him, and it irritated me that my mother was setting that kind of example for us. I wasn't going to pretend that none of this was a big deal, and that we should just accept my father's death by heart attack as some kind of greater spiritual purpose that we couldn't understand. It wasn't that way to me. He was dead and we were all devastated by it: pretending that we weren't feeling those things did nothing for anyone.

But my mother wanted to insist that everything was going to be fine. Seth and I were teenagers, not five-year-olds; she could have chosen to include us in her grief, but instead she danced around the issue. Part of me understood: my mother had always been a strong woman, and maybe she was afraid that if she let herself be weak, everything would crumble to dust around her. Maybe she felt that if she structured our lives around her loss, she could keep it at arms length, and from there it couldn't hurt her, couldn't sneak up on her. I could understand that, too, but it wasn't what I wanted.

When we got home, my mother declared that she had a headache and retreated to the bedroom. I imagined her lying there, inhaling the last remnants of my father's scent from his pillow. I could understand the hollowed-out feeling that she must have been feeling, and for a moment I was tempted to climb into that bed with her, to curl into her body as I had once curled inside her womb, and heal her from the inside out. But I knew that she felt she had to do this alone, at least now. If I went in there, she would declare herself whole and force herself out of that bed. So I let her stay.

I looked at my brother. He was standing just inside the door, wearing only one shoe- I followed his gaze and saw him staring at our father's fishing boots. He'd cast them off just inside when he'd come home only those few short days ago, the day Seth's fever had started. Mud still clung to the soles, and I knew what Seth was thinking: he would never wear those again. They would sit in this exact spot at that exact angle until one of us had the strength to move them, to tuck them away in a box or donate them to someone in need of boots, because our father didn't need them anymore.

"Seth." I walked over to him and touched his shoulder; my fingertips against his skin made him jump. "Do you want to go for a run?" I asked him.

He glanced out the window and I thought I saw longing in his eyes. I knew he enjoyed being in wolf form, running swiftly through the underbrush with the wind in his fur and his big paws leaving enormous footprints in the mud. It made him happy, but he shook his head and removed his other shoe.

"Nothing's going to change anything," he said softly. "He's gone."

"I know," I answered him, my voice equally soft. I didn't offer him any platitudes; I prided myself on avoiding that, knowing that most people wouldn't. "Do you want to do something? Watch a movie… play a board game?"

"I don't really want to do anything, Leah," he answered heavily. "I think I'm going to have a nap. I'm exhausted."

I nodded and swept my hand through his cropped dark hair, missing the crown of soft waves he used to wear. I missed my own long hair too, but there was no avoiding the shorter styles: our wolves looked ridiculous and shaggy, and the longer fur could easily get in your eyes. He gave me a small smile and then moved away from me. I watched him disappear into his room with an ache in my chest, wishing I could take this pain away from him. But I knew I couldn't, and it would be wrong to try. I looked down at my father's boots and wiped my tears away as soon as they fell from my eyes. Then I stooped and picked them up, and with one flick of my wrist I tossed them into the bottom coat closet, so none of us would have to look at them.

The house was silent, and the air sat heavily on my body. I felt like I was drowning in that silence, and without the distraction of my living family I found myself far too preoccupied with the dead. For me, retreating to my bedroom didn't offer me the same solace it did my mother and brother: my bedroom still felt like a trap at times, as though it held onto some remnant of my panic at being confined there. That leftover feeling seemed to descend on me as soon as I crossed over the threshold. My bedroom was not a refuge, and neither was my house- not now. I pulled off my shoes and socks, something I only wore for my mother's sake these days, as I was far more comfortable without my feet sweating and had developed a thick sole on the bottom of my feet to protect me against the forest floor.

Lots of people on the Rez live within ten steps of the forest, myself included, which is probably the only reason we can get away with turning into giant wolves and running around all over the place. I was dressed nicely because of the funeral and didn't want to wreck my good clothes, so I walked far enough into the forest on my human feet that I could undress in private. I stashed my clothes in a burnt-out tree stump and stood for a moment, just relishing the feeling of the cool forest air on my naked skin. It wasn't something most people- women in particular- ever got to experience, and it was one of the few things about shifting that I liked.

Unlike Seth, it didn't make me happy. I wanted it to stop, and I was determined to find a way to do that. It wasn't just because I was being called on to put myself in lethal danger fighting vampires, or even that all my plans had been destroyed precisely because of the shift… it was something much deeper than that. I wanted to be allowed to call the shots in my own life. I felt so trapped by what had happened to me: with the shift, it didn't look like I could even leave this reservation; the pull of the land had become so strong. With the shift, I was in constant danger of imprinting, something that at times seemed alluring because of its simplicity but also something that scared the hell out of me. The idea that I could lose my senses and worship another person regardless of how that person felt about me was frightening. If I fell in love again, I wanted it to be real, and I wanted the same for my brother. It made me sick to think that he might set eyes on some random girl and suddenly live for her and no other, and never get to grow up properly and experience the normal feelings of first loves, broken hearts, and spurned crushes.

But the shift had stolen more than my dreams of college or marrying Sam. I hadn't told any of the boys, and if they had seen it in my mind they hadn't commented on it. Since everything started, since I changed, my body seems to have gone quiet, its rhythms paused and muffled, non-existent. I'm not menopausal, and yet I'm not fertile either. My body sits, suspended in time, and I have no control over it. This is nothing I wanted, and nothing I asked for, and for no other reason than to know that it's still possible for me to be a mother, I want to learn control. With control, the council has told us, you can stop shifting, start aging again, have children, and die. Of course, they temper these promises with the warning that no woman has ever shifted, so who knows what will happen to me? But I feel a great urgency, as though every day that goes by where I remain in suspended animation is another day that my body assumes I don't need to know how to grow a life inside me.

Standing in the woods, nude, I lowered a hand onto my bare belly, imagining all the workings that had gone silent there. I still digested my food, still breathed, and my heart was still beating; yet that one little organ tucked behind my pubic bone had not made the shift with the rest. I could only hope that it was saving its reserves for later, rather than shutting down prematurely forever. I've always wanted to be a mother, and now that I'm afraid it's impossible, I want it even more.

Seeing Seth's birth and loving him as a baby and a child started me down the path of my longing, and when I was so sure that Sam and I would be together forever, I spent hours imagining what our children would look like. I couldn't quite picture yet having a baby with anyone but him, which is how I know I'm nowhere near ready, but I never counted on the option being taken completely off the table. As soon as I can stop, I will. And as soon as I figure out how to teach Seth to stop, I will… though it's becomes clearer to me every day that he probably won't be interested. It scares me, but I know it's his life, and it would be hypocritical for me to try to live it for him when his ability to make his own mistakes is the exact thing I'm trying to protect.

Shaking away my thoughts, I put my hands together as though I was swan diving off the cliffs near the highway where the Rez kids like to play, and dove into the underbrush. Midair, I shifted into wolf form, feeling the satisfying muffled thump of my four paws landing softly in the dirt. There were some perks to this newfound ability of mine, and it wasn't that I didn't stand in awe of my own talents or abilities. It just wasn't what I wanted long-term.

* * *

I had been running aimlessly through Olympic National Park for maybe an hour, thankfully alone with my own thoughts, when someone else suddenly joined me. I felt the presence snap on like a light switch, and quickly I tried to reign in my thoughts. I was still paranoid about what I was thinking about during the link, even though they were all remarkably polite about not repeating embarrassing things they had seen in someone else's head. Still, I had caught each of them, on more than one occasion, thinking about me naked. It was unavoidable; as much as we all tried, it happened: I saw them, and they saw me. I knew Jared thought that was one of the reasons why girls didn't traditionally become werewolves, and it could be pretty awkward sometimes. Still, it happened, and we all had to live with it, but I hated overhearing it almost as much as they hated me to know they were fantasizing about me. We all toed around the issue because there was no other choice in how to handle it.

_Hey Leah,_ Paul's voice came to me through the link. _You okay?_

_I'm fine,_ I answered. _I just wanted to blow off some steam._

_I'm not too far from you,_ he said. _Want to meet up?_

I hesitated. Did I? It was on the tip of my tongue to say no, but then I realized that I didn't want to be alone, not really. Running with someone else would help keep my mind off things, and besides, it wasn't like I could really ignore him if he stayed in wolf form, even if he wasn't with me physically.

_Sure,_ I said, and I'd barely thought the word before I heard him crashing through the underbrush to my right and then his dark gray wolf form was standing in front of me.

_Told you I wasn't far,_ he said, and I could practically hear the smirk in his voice.

_Yeah, great, _I answered dryly as we moved off, running side-by-side. _Now if there are any hunters in the vicinity they'll all know just where to come looking for us._

He laughed. _There's no one,_ he said. _So don't worry._ We startled a small herd of white-tailed deer and they quickly leapt away from us. I saw Paul's thoughts drift to how hungry he was. I preferred to avoid eating in wolf form at all costs, but the boys enjoyed it and accepted it as part of the shift. To me, it was disgusting, and I'm sure he overheard my revulsion because the thought faded from his mind immediately.

Instead, he started imagining a platter full of vegetables, fruit, and tofu squares, just to irritate me, I'm sure. Because they were stupid boys, the entire pack, even Seth, all thought it was hilarious that I refused to swallow huge chunks of dripping, bloody raw deer meat, but I enjoyed eating, say, a cheeseburger from McDonalds. In their idiocy they didn't see the difference.

_Hey, don't call us idiots just because you're squeamish,_ Paul protested, overhearing my disdain.

_Can we talk about something else?_ I retorted.

_How are you doing?_ his gentle voice came back to me. I saw an image of my father's face flash through his mind, and then my own face as I stood by the gravesite at the funeral. Two things in quick succession surprised me: one, that I looked absolutely awful, and two, that he'd thought I looked pretty. He'd thought I looked brave and maternal, too, which I actually found more flattering. Anyone can look pretty with the right clothes and makeup, but where does that get you in the end?

_I'll be fine,_ I answered him.

Next to me, his wolf form slowed from the flat-out run we were on to a leisurely walk, and I was forced to do the same, though I'd been enjoying the run. He looked over at me, his dark eyes exactly identical to his human ones. After my initial shock of my first shift, I had spent some time staring into a mirror. I found it both beautiful and creepy that my eyes were so human in wolf form; now, looking at pictures of the eyes of real wolves, they looked strange, almost fishlike in their lack of expression.

_I know you'll _be _fine, _he said pointedly. _But how are you now?_

My immediate reaction was to tell him I felt fine, but I knew that was pointless. In this form, I couldn't lie to him. So I slowed my pace to a stop and sat down on my haunches in the dirt. I wondered if we could cry in wolf form.

Paul sat down very close to me and lifted his head up on top of mine; because I was smaller, he was able to tuck my head under his chin. At first it seemed silly, but then I welcomed the comfort of his body next to mine. I wanted badly to change back to human form so he could hold me properly, but the logistics made that impossible.

_I hid my clothes not far from here,_ his thoughts came through to me as he heard what I wanted. _I have enough that it could work._ I heard him thinking about his clothes- he also hadn't bothered to change after the funeral, so tucked into the boughs of a tree nearby was a full men's suit, rented for the occasion.

Without waiting for my reply, or probably picking up on it without the need for me to actually form the words, he left my side, returning quickly with a bundle of clothes. Oftentimes when we went running we tied our clothes to our legs, which could be awkward but came in very handy if you had to shift back quickly, but as this was an impromptu shift for both of us, we hadn't had the opportunity to really plan ahead.

Paul held the clothes gingerly in his teeth, taking care not to get them covered in saliva. He laid them on a relatively clean patch of ground and used his nose to separate a few articles for me, which I carried into the trees a short distance away. I shifted and quickly pulled on what he'd given me- the shirt, which hung to my mid-thighs, and a pair of his boxers, which I hesitated to put on until I realized that the bottom edge of my butt peeked out just a little at the back of the shirt. Well, at least they weren't briefs. I finished dressing and returned to the clearing, where Paul was already dressed in the suit pants; the jacket, socks, and shoes he'd piled on a nearby stump, since he knew neither of us would be cold enough to want them. I could hardly remember what cold felt like anymore.

Now that I had gone away and come back again, I felt a bit silly resuming our embrace. I still wanted to, but it seemed awkward. Luckily, Paul wasn't shy, and with the surety that could only come from having read my thoughts and knowing, without a doubt, what I really wanted, he crossed the clearing and pulled me into his arms. I let him hold me, and I felt the steady, even rhythm of his heart under my ear as he again tucked my head under his chin. His warmth surrounded me and that soothed me.

"I'm fine," I said softly, after a long time had passed.

"You know," he answered, sighing a little. "When people die, it's really us who are the only ones that suffer. I think your dad's all right, Leah. I don't know if there's a heaven, or whether we all get reincarnated, or whether we just stop, but whatever the end result is… he's okay. But you got left behind. You lost him. So there's nothing wrong with you _not_ being okay."

I blinked my tears back and focused on the way his breathing lifted and lowered my face gently, how my perspective of the trees changed just a little with each breath. "Your dad was always nice to me," he said after a while. "Even before I changed. I know I'm not an easy guy to get along with… but he was always nice."

"You're alright," I told him. I felt him shrug and I pulled back a little to look at him. It was true that most people thought Paul was nothing but a short-tempered jerk; I had always thought that, growing up. But now I knew him better than my own mother, so I couldn't really boil him down in that way anymore. I couldn't boil any of them down. "You are," I insisted. Paul smiled at me and gave another little shrug, so I poked him in the belly playfully.

I can't say that I was completely surprised when his lips closed over mine, but I was a little taken aback by how much I wanted him to do it, once he started kissing me. When I didn't pull away he took hold of my shoulders and backed me up until I felt tree bark against my shoulder blades. Then he deepened the kiss, and as his tongue slipped past my lips to touch my own, I moaned and raked my hands through his hair, grabbing the back of his head to pull him in closer. As soon as I gave him that permission, one of his hands moved to my chest and, our lips still locked together, he quickly grabbed a handful of my shirt in his fist. With a single flick of his wrist, he tore the row of buttons from their holes and his hand closed over one of my exposed breasts. I reached down and pushed the hem of his boxers down past my hips, where they fell in a bunch onto the soft dirt at my feet. Then I attacked the button and zipper of his pants, pulling them open and letting them fall as well. He kicked them away and took hold of the bottom of my legs, hoisting me upward.

The shirt I was still wearing offered little protection against the hard bark of the tree, which chewed into my back as he lifted me. I hissed in a breath at the pain, but through my passion it translated into pleasure and without thinking I raked my fingernails over his back to share the moment. Paul let out a low growl, and I was surprised how my body responded to that as I melted into his arms. He kissed me again, biting down hard on my bottom lip and my hands found his shoulders, gripping him so tightly I would have been sure to leave bruises if he couldn't heal so easily.

In one swift movement, Paul lifted my leg and tucked it up over his shoulder, supporting the bottom of my other thigh with one strong forearm. I pulled at him urgently, the torture becoming too much now, and as he lowered his head to suck one of my nipples into his mouth, I bit down on one of his shoulders hard. He hissed in a breath, and then in an instant he let me drop just far enough to join our bodies completely.

I let out a low groan as he started moving inside me. Only one man had ever touched me, and this was as different from that as night was to day. Where all my experience up to now had been of slow, passionate, tame lovemaking, this was wild, frantic, rough sex. To do this with Paul, or at all, was nothing I would have ever planned, but it was everything I wanted in that moment. All thoughts of grief or worry disappeared instantly from my mind in the face of what he was doing to me, and the only thing that existed was the two of us together. With his body he drove out my sorrow, until all I felt was rapture and freedom and no thoughts at all.

**

* * *

Author's Note: **Sorry again for the long wait between updates. I am a daily or semi-daily updater, but school is so intense this semester that my former timeline is probably not realistic. Just so you all know, I'm in midwifery school, so in addition to lectures and tons of homework I'm also running around at all hours of the day and night attending births- I'm a busy lady! But I am going to keep writing and I'm still really enjoying this story, so I hope you'll all stick with me on it! Please review this chapter- I'd love to hear what you think! :-)


	13. Chapter 12

I don't know how long it went on for; time, like everything, slipped away from me, but I think it was a long time. We were both exhausted and sweaty by the time we were finished, and collapsed onto the soft forest floor, the dirt sticking to our naked bodies as Paul pulled me toward him. I rested my head on his arm and curled into his chest, listening to his breathing. I could see multiple bite marks in his skin, which were healing rapidly, a bit of dried blood here and there the only indication that my teeth had sunk in deeply. I knew I had similar marks on my own body, as well a dark bruises which were quickly fading to nothing on my wrists and hips where he'd held me so tightly I thought my bones would snap.

I could still feel in my back where the bark of trees and the sharp jabs of rocks and twigs had stabbed into me as we had moved and rolled and tumbled in our passion, but they too would be gone before I ever got any kind of look. It was a strange thing to have your body repair an injury before you even had the chance to really notice it. Somewhere inside, I was shocked by our behaviour, and what was more, how much I had enjoyed that physicality, that violence, something that I had never before found sexy or appealing in any way. Certainly Sam had never hurt me, and without a doubt I had never wanted him to, but with Paul it was different. I didn't know if it was him, or me, or some combination of the two of us, but the intensity of how our bodies had reacted to one another was now, in retrospect, overwhelming.

But I was too exhausted to really give it all much thought, and I soon fell into a sleep so deep that I didn't dream. I felt like I had run a marathon, and it made me feel deliciously tired and devoid of thought or purpose. I didn't have to do anything or think anything or be anyone other than this girl lying naked in the arms of someone I trusted and loved but didn't particularly like. There was nothing but this, and that feeling was something I desperately needed in that moment. Had Paul seen my need for withdrawal from the world, my frantic desire to cut myself off from everything and rest for a moment beyond myself, and taken advantage? No, I didn't believe that. I had needed him and he was there: an uncomplicated shared experience, no love or expectation clouding his ability to see, plainly, the stark reality of my need. To have denied me would have been the selfish thing.

Only it wasn't uncomplicated, I slowly realized as sleep lifted itself off my consciousness. Even without clothing, under a rapidly darkening sky in the middle of a forest, I wasn't cold. But my hands trembled just a little as I got to my feet and found the torn remnants of the shirt he'd given me, and the boxers I hadn't been able to get rid of fast enough. I heard him moving around behind me as I dressed, my face flaming even though I was certain he wasn't looking. Even though I was no longer naked I found it hard to turn and look at him, so he came to me instead and raised his hand, where it hung in the air for a moment behind my back. I felt it hovering there, close enough to raise the tiny hairs on my skin, before he planted it in a place he deemed appropriate: the small of my back. I turned around to him and raised my eyes to his apprehensively, but I found no scorn or smug look there, no gloating expression to show that he considered this a conquest, something to brag about in the locker room.

But there was no locker room. Just the minds of six other boys, who would know about this the instant one of us shifted next. And I would know their feelings about it; I would know how they looked at me and what they thought behind my back.

Sam would know. For the first time, he would see me in the arms of another man as I had been forced to see him in union with Emily's in so many different places that it seemed I couldn't step foot anywhere without being reminded of their writing bodies. What would he feel when he saw this? Would he feel a pang, finally, for what we once shared together, some dim cellular memory of his former life? Or would he be disappointed, or annoyed, that I hadn't thought ahead to how this would affect the whole? Was I now expected to live my life constantly mindful of their individual comfort levels?

Then I thought of the one person whose comfort level _did_ matter to me, and my heart froze. If Seth had seen Sam's memories of making love to me, or my own memories of the same events, he had taken great pains not to inform me of this. But this was fresh- not a memory, but an event that had happened here and now. How would he handle this? What could I do to soften this for him, to make him understand? All at once I saw my act with Paul through his eyes, his innocent, caring eyes that believed I was a good person who loved him more than anyone, and I felt sick. I _did_ love him more than anyone, but I felt as terribly as if he had stood at the edge of that clearing and witnessed our carnality. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I must have known that he would see this. But had I cared?

"Leah," Paul said softly, removing his hand from the small of my back and walking around to face me and look into my eyes. He had gotten dressed too, wearing his suit pants again. There was no way he was going to be able to return his rental now, after how we'd destroyed it. I saw with relief that there was still no triumph in his eyes, no pride or superiority. He looked concerned and nothing more.

"I'm fine," I told him. "It's fine."

"Leah," he said, letting out a quick breath of frustration. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," I answered, turning from him and starting back towards home.

He followed me, which was irritating; I had gotten what I needed from him, and his continued presence only multiplied my shame. "Leah," he said my name again, and there was something changed in the way he said it, so subtle it couldn't really be pinpointed, but I could hear it. I had wanted to use his body as a shield against the rest of the world, and it had worked, but I'd forgotten about afterward: he was not some stranger in a bar that I could pick up and discard at will. He was someone I knew very well, someone who loved me, who I loved, but how I wished in that moment that he was some nameless face I could shut away in my mind and never think of again.

"What?" I asked, turning back to him abruptly. He looked taken aback, and I felt an immediate stab of guilt. My mind was on Seth, but Paul deserved something, too. I owed him as much. "I'm sorry," I said. "I don't want this to be a big thing."

"It doesn't have to be," he agreed with a small shrug. I gazed at him for a moment, trying to decide if I believed his words. Yes, it was true- I had chosen well. Of all the boys in the pack, Paul was probably the only one capable of really letting this mean nothing.

I found it immensely relaxing to know that I could tell him the whole truth, to know that even if I held something back for the sake of embarrassment or privacy, he would know it later anyway, so there was no use in hiding. "Please don't shift back until I've talked to Seth," I told him. "I don't want him to find out about this like that."

Slowly, he nodded; I knew he understood. Paul was an only child by blood, but by the pack he had enough brothers to know where I was coming from. I didn't know if it was my own thoughts that had infected the others or if it was just due to Seth's youthful purity, but I noticed that all of them naturally took special protective measures over him, and I appreciated that. If Paul had shifted and Seth happened to have been in wolf form right now, it probably wouldn't have been terrible- but he was my brother, and I felt this was my responsibility. I think Paul understood that.

"Do you want me to drive you home?" he asked me. "I parked near where I hid my clothes."

It would have been faster to drive, but with his guarantee that he wouldn't shift until I'd given the okay, I wanted nothing more than to be alone.

"I'm okay to walk," I told him.

"This doesn't have to be weird," he answered me.

"I know," I said. "It won't be. This was just a one-time thing… it happened. It's not like we planned it."

He smiled a little at me, and for the first time I thought I saw a hint of smug satisfaction, but it wasn't malicious. I'd had enough exposure to male minds by now to know how they operated: crowing like a rooster because you just got laid doesn't necessarily equate to objectifying the girl you got laid by. In fact, I don't even think those kinds of connections occur to them sometimes. It's easy for women to give the male mind much more credit than it deserves. In a way I admire their ability to function off such simple thought processes, rarely obsessing or overanalyzing, almost always taking things at face value… in contrast, I knew they found my mind exhausting, and were truly shocked at some of the connections I made when people spoke to me or acted in certain subtle ways that they never noticed. The pack mind had become an exceptional learning curve for everyone, now that I'd joined it.

Paul didn't try to touch me again, or kiss me; he just left me alone, and I was grateful for it. Maybe a tiny part of me missed him once he was gone, but mostly I was relieved. I walked home in silence, trying not to think, as though that might be possible.

For the briefest moment, I thought of my father, and had a fleeting curiosity about whether he might have been looking down on me, disappointed that I had chosen the day of his funeral to become sexually active after over a year of celibacy. But the thought passed almost as soon as it arrived. I didn't really believe that the dead watched us. I didn't even know if I believed in any kind of afterlife, but rather that we all just stopped existing at death, like a single light going off in a multitude of lights. Who would notice, really? One individual seems so insignificant in the face of a world. Only to me, he _was_ significant… the only father Seth and I would ever have.

But I didn't believe he was frowning down on me from any kind of afterlife, either; and if he was, then he wasn't worth my time. Besides, from what I knew, being a female werewolf was probably disappointment enough. If my father were watching over anyone, it would be my mother or Seth. Knowing that made me feel immensely lonely, but I shook it away. I had other things to worry about now. The dead, if they still existed, had endless time, a concept I was only still getting used to as it related to myself. Immortality seemed a pointless thing to comprehend in the face of all the menial tasks and profound moments of a single lifetime. If I ever figured out how to live with my mistakes and the injustices of this one lifetime, then I would start thinking about another; meanwhile, I had the here and now to worry about. I had Seth.

One wish was granted to me: he was home when I got there, not out running around in wolf form, which would have given me ample time to pace my bedroom and stress and worry about what I would say to him when he finally got back. But I didn't have to subject myself to any of that; he wasn't even in his bedroom anymore. I could see him through the window of the kitchen instead, making a giant pot of spaghetti. I crept into the house and hurried to my room, where I got dressed properly and brushed my hair.

I examined myself in the mirror for a long moment, trying to decide if I looked different. Would he know what I had done? Would he read it on my face, or smell it on my skin, or see it in my eyes? But I wasn't just looking for what he might see… I was looking for what _I_ thought, too. Who was Leah Clearwater? What kind of girl was she? Up to now I had been a girl who had lost her virginity to a boy she was in love with, at the reasonable age of sixteen. Now I was a girl who had sudden, meaningless, almost violent sex with a boy I wasn't in love with in the middle of a forest on the day of my father's funeral. I had never seen this Leah coming: she was as startling to me as I knew she would be for my brother. I hated to imagine what he would think of me; but I knew I couldn't stall forever. Finally, I left the safety of the bathroom and went to him.

"Is that dinner?" I asked as I walked into the kitchen, grateful for the opportunity of a neutral conversation to ease me into what I had planned.

"Yeah," he said, a little glumly. "Mom went to work."

I let out a soft sigh; I was relieved that she wasn't around right now, but I knew Seth resented how she clung to work to keep her mind occupied. He wanted her to prioritize _us,_ but though I knew she loved us fiercely, her work had always been her focus, while we had been her joy. I touched his hair, relieved that he didn't shy away from my hand or try to make a show of bravery that he didn't really feel. For my mother, he would have; that was the paradox: she thought he didn't need her so much, and he pretended it was true. But I knew what was really true.

"Seth," I said. "I need to talk to you… it's kind of important."

"Okay," he answered. "It has to boil for a bit." He followed me into the living room, where I sat us down on the couch, giving him a good amount of space for the awkwardness I was sure he'd soon feel.

"Seth…" I started, but his apprehensive expression cut me off. "What?"

"I don't want to talk about Dad."

I smiled gently at him. "Neither do I," I promised.

He looked genuinely confused, even a little suspicious. "Then what's up?"

I couldn't hold eye contact with him after that, so I grabbed one of my mother's throw pillows that had a little bit of fringe on it and played with its edges as I spoke, my face flaming. "This is not something I'd normally talk to you about, Seth," I told him. "But with the mind link and all, I know it's going to come up, and I want me to be the one you hear it from."

I paused so he could say something, but he didn't.

After a deep breath, I managed to say, without sugarcoating or euphemisms, "Paul and I just had sex." After all, he was fifteen, not ten, and even if he had still thought babies came from flower petals, he had six older boys in his head much of the time now. Besides, our mother was a nurse- we had both learned about the birds and the bees as children. Still, we certainly hadn't ever discussed it with one another, and one glance at his bright red face showed me that he had no interest in this line of dialogue.

"Um… Leah…" he stammered. "I really didn't need to know that…"

"I know," I said gently, still not quite bringing myself to look at his eyes. I settled on his forehead instead, his hairline, the dimple in his brow. "I just don't want the… images… to scare you."

He made a face at me. "I'm not going to get scared. What are you-" He broke off, and I was startled by the open shock that suddenly flashed across his face. "Wait, he didn't, like, hurt you or something, did he?"

"No," I said quickly, and then I hesitated. He caught it immediately.

"But?" he asked. I couldn't read his voice, if it was disbelief or incredulity or fear.

I looked at my brother, the baby I carried in my arms, the little boy whose scraped knees I kissed and the teenager who had been my companion through a terrible, frightening change that no one should have to endure. I wanted to choose my words carefully, not only to preserve my image in his eyes, but also to teach him that there are better ways to handle grief and confusion and loneliness. He was not a child, but he had never even kissed a girl, and I wanted him to make his own mistakes and live his own life, not have vicarious experiences through his friends, and certainly not through his sister. I didn't want him to be confused, so that by the time he was interested enough in a girl to want to be with her, he knew which feelings were his own. I wanted to give him a gift that I never had, a collection of mistakes that he could place on the map of his own life as landmarks to avoid.

With great difficulty, I told him the entire truth. He would hear it anyway, I knew, through the link, from both Paul and me. But that wasn't the same, and I wanted my words to be his first impression of what I'd done. So I told him, "I went running after the funeral and he was out in the woods already… we ran around together for a bit and I was feeling sad. It wasn't something I planned, but it was what I wanted. It was very different than it was with Sam. It was rough." We lost eye contact again as we both looked at our hands instinctively, each wanting to make this conversation less uncomfortable than it had to be. But I forced myself to continue, "We hurt each other, and we liked it better that way, in the moment. He made me forget everything I was feeling and he let me feel like nothing else mattered for a little while… I was so upset and overwhelmed, and I needed to feel that. But it was really irresponsible of me to use sex to find that kind of comfort. It might have seemed great in the short term, but now I feel embarrassed and ashamed of what I did, and that all of you have to know about it."

After I was finished, I fell silent. Part of me couldn't believe I had really said all that to him, and I'm sure he couldn't believe it either. But what choice did I have? He would know it all soon enough, and as awkward as this was it would allow him to take in the knowledge of what I'd done without the interference of other feelings and minds. I think it was the right thing, even if it was incredibly difficult for us both.

He didn't say anything for a long time. Finally he said simply, "Okay."

I gazed at him. I could see from the creases in his forehead and the look in his eyes that his mind was trying to make sense of everything I'd told him. Gently I said, "Seth... if you want to ask me anything, I'll tell you the truth."

Again, he was silent for a long time, but I knew he'd heard me. I waited patiently. Eventually, he stood up and hurried into the kitchen, pulling the pasta from the stove and draining it before adding sauce and meatballs and simmering it on the stove again. Tentatively I followed him into the kitchen, but I hung back against the far counter, giving him space as he busied himself with dishing up a heaping bowl for each of us. I got the jug of water from the fridge and two glasses, and we went and sat at the dining room table and ate in silence. It made me nervous, but even still I could feel that something had shifted; the silence wasn't uncomfortable, and Seth wasn't angry or upset.

When we were both nearly finished our huge bowls of pasta, he said softly, "I'm sad for you, Leah."

I couldn't help but smile at him when he said that. It was just the kind of thing he would say. Neutrally I answered, "Why?"

He let out a heavy sigh, a breath that seemed to go on forever. "Because you used to be so happy." He really looked a time for the first time in an hour. "Are you ever going to be happy again?"

Suddenly, I felt sick to my stomach, and I had to push away the rest of my food. "I don't know," I whispered finally.

"Are you and Paul going to do that again?"

"I'm not planning on it," I answered immediately, but then I realized how useless those words were in the face of the fact that I hadn't planned it the first time. So I revised my answered and said, "I don't know. I don't think so."

"I don't want you to feel ashamed," he said. "Not because of me."

"I don't feel ashamed because of you," I promised. "I feel ashamed because I did something without thinking and now I have to live with the consequences."

"But if it wasn't for the link, would you feel as bad?" he challenged me.

I had to think about it, but I already knew the answer. "Not as much," I admitted. "But I still would."

"I used to hear you and Sam sometimes," he told me suddenly, his face going bright red again. "It was totally gross, but I knew you were happy. I don't think Paul can make you happy like that, Leah."

"He can't," I agreed. "And I don't want him to."

"Then you shouldn't do it," he concluded aloud, as if that would settle everything.

"I know," I answered with a small smile.

After a short silence he said, "I don't want to talk about this anymore."

"Okay," I said, not wanting to push the issue any further than it had already been pushed. "But if you ever want to talk about it again, that's fine."

"I think I'm going to go over to Embry's," he answered tactfully. "He has an Xbox."

"Alright," I said with a laugh. "But only if you swear you're not mad."

He looked surprised. "I'm not mad," he said honestly.

"You know I love you, right?" I asked him. "You know I would never do anything on purpose to hurt you?" Without realizing it, my eyes had filled with tears, but they didn't fall.

Seth gazed at me for a long moment, and then he came around the table and wrapped his arms around my neck. I held him close to me as he said softly into my hair, "I don't want you to censor your life because of me."

"Okay," I answered, equally soft. "And I don't want you to skip yours because of all of us."

He pulled back and gave me his sweet, warm smile. "I'll be home in a couple of hours," he told me gently.

"Call if you decide to sleep over," I answered, and he hurried off to his room to get ready as I cleared away the dishes.

I scraped the food from the plates and started to rinse them, but they fell from my shaking hands, clattering together and coming to rest in the basin of the sink. I stood there, taking deep breaths as my body flooded with relief from all the pent-up worry I had been carrying. I had shown him a very ugly side of myself, and he hadn't broken, hadn't recoiled from me or thought less of me. I hadn't realized until how just how much his judgment mattered to me, but it did- so much. If Seth ever stopped looking up to me and started looking down on me, I didn't know what I would do. It seemed that if that happened, then all the hope from the world would be gone.

Finally, I tended to the dishes and put the leftover spaghetti in the fridge, knowing it would be eaten soon enough- since the shift, we were both irreconcilably hungry all the time. A shadow passed over the doorway and I turned to smile at Seth, who had changed his clothes, combed his hair, and had a bag slung over his shoulder and his runners in his hand. It was pretty likely that he would stay the night, but it was Saturday and he deserved some downtime after everything we'd been through.

"I almost forgot," he said. "Mom's officially taking her place on the tribal council tomorrow. They're going to tell her everything."

I knew it was coming, but I hadn't counted on it being so soon. I forced a smile. "Okay," I said. "Thanks for letting me know."

"It'll be nice when she knows everything, don't you think?" he said, hopping from one foot to the other as he pulled on his shoes. Without waiting for a response, he waved a goodbye to me and hurried from the house, leaving me alone.

I understood what he was saying; lying and sneaking around behind our mother's back was neither pleasant nor easy. But in a flash from Sam's mind, one he'd tried and failed to hide from me, I had seen this:

My father _had_ come to my room after I made the shift. He had seen his daughter transformed into a small gray wolf, and he had not survived it. But it had been neither the distress of realizing that people were capable of shapeshifting, which he already believed, nor the fact that his own blood carried the gene, which he already knew, that had killed him. What had caused him to collapse outside my bedroom, dead of shock at fifty-seven, was this truth and nothing else: that I was a girl, and in making the shift, I had violated a boundary so sacred I wasn't even aware it existed. My abomination had been so repulsive to him that it had been incompatible with his life: his body had chosen to die rather than exist as the father of a female werewolf. And as he lay dying in Sam's arms, he had managed not even a single word to let me or anyone else believe it could possibly have been something different.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Aw, I think I lost a few readers when I went back to school and started updating less frequently! If you're still out there, please review this chapter so I know you're still enjoying the story... if not, then thanks to all of you still sticking with me even though I'm not updating as often as I want! I really, REALLY appreciate it and look very much forward to your reviews. :)


	14. Chapter 13

Seth had decided to sleep over at Embry's after all, and I took this as a sign that I needed to say something to my mother. Time alone with her was a precious thing, not to be taken lightly. Since I'd made my decision, I purposely hadn't shifted, so Sam wouldn't know about my plans. I knew it was technically probably breaking the rules to tell her anything, but I hadn't specifically been ordered not to. Besides, they were going to tell her everything the next day anyway. What difference would it make then? I thought she deserved to hear it from me.

But I was scared. What would the tribal council think? They already treated me like I was radioactive, trying to include me in their guidance of the boys, but holding me apart despite their best intentions, always looking askance at me, as if there was something in my appearance or movements that could give them the answer to my deviance. Part of me was desperate to ask Sam for advice, but I knew exactly what he would say, and I didn't want anyone to stop me. Besides, we didn't talk to each other much if we didn't have to.

More importantly, how would my mother take this? Was I making a mistake thinking I was the better messenger of such a cruel truth? I wanted to protect her from knowing that her children had made this change, that we would be forever separate from her. But there was no stopping this now- she was determined to take my father's seat on the council, and when my mother set her mind to something, there was nothing to do but be prepared.

I wasn't prepared when she came home from work that night. I heard the car outside, and a few moments later I heard the door open and her keys drop into the dish next to our coat closet. I had been in the living room reading, but when I heard her car I'm embarrassed to say I jumped up and ran into the kitchen. Now I stood, the countertop digging into my lower back, my hands clenched against its sharp edges, waiting. Part of me hoped she would go straight to bed, but I knew she wouldn't. Instead, she made a beeline for the kitchen, turned on the light, and jumped as she saw me.

"Leah!" she gasped. "What are you doing in the dark? You scared me. I thought you kids were out." She was usually like this, chatty from her long day of interacting with others, as if she couldn't quite shift gears, and she didn't notice when I didn't answer her. She started pulling things from the cupboards as she continued, "It was crazy busy at the clinic today. There's a bout of strep throat going around at school so I'll have to remind Seth not to share drinks or touch his face too much." She filled the kettle with water, put it on the stove, threw two pieces of toast into the toaster, and finally settled down long enough to look at me. She smiled and reached over to smooth the hair from my face.

My parents have a significant age difference, and my mother is young and clear-faced and quite pretty, even when she's tired. She has an open, inviting smile, and warm brown eyes that pull you in. Those eyes and that face had pulled me from a million crises, seen me through injuries and hurt feelings and a broken heart. I trusted her, but I didn't want to hurt her. I suddenly wished I had been a more rebellious kid- that I'd gotten something pierced without my parents' permission or came home drunk, so I would know how my mother would react to shock.

Absently, I reached up and touched my fingers to the tattoo on the outside of my right shoulder, which I had kept hidden from her, not knowing how she would react. It was torture to wear sleeves with how hot I always was, but Seth and I had both made the decision to do so. The council had framed the tattoo as a choice, but it had pretty much been forced on each of us, quickly and efficiently, before our healing abilities fully manifested. As Billy had explained to Sam the first time they did it, it was the last scar any of us would ever have.

"Did you hurt your shoulder?" my mother's question broke through my thoughts, her nurse's eyes narrowed in concern as she tried to size me up. Instantly, I dropped my hand and started to shake my head, but then I hesitated. How was I going to tell her everything if I couldn't tell her that?

So I lifted the sleeve of my shirt up and showed it to her. My mother said nothing for a long moment. I wasn't sure what I saw in her eyes as she gazed at the intricate black patterns on my arm that formed the image of two wolves facing one another.

The kettle started screaming, and she took that opportunity to pause and throw a couple of tea bags into the pot before filling it with water and tucking it under its cozy. She turned back to me and smiled and hooked her arm through mine, pulling me out to the living room. I heard her toast pop behind us, but she ignored it. We sat on the couch and she examined the tattoo more closely. Her fingers were cool as they ran over the image, and I knew she was assessing how old it might be by how healed it was, how faded. If she only knew.

"Are you mad?" I couldn't help asking her.

"No," she answered right away, putting me at ease. "You're eighteen, Leah. Technically you can do whatever you want." She knew I was the kind of kid she could say that to and not have it go to my head.

"I know," I said. She let go of my arm so I put my shirt back down.

"Are you feeling okay, honey?" she asked me with concern, looking into my eyes. "Your skin feels really warm."

I hesitated, but it was a perfect in. I forced myself to speak before I completely lost my nerve. "Mom… remember when Seth and I had those fevers?" She said nothing because we both knew she would never forget. "Mom, I have to tell you something."

"Hold on a second," she answered. "This sounds like a tea conversation." Quickly she stood and went to the kitchen, and I heard her rattling cups and spoons. I couldn't help but smile. We'd had many 'tea conversations' in our lives, and whenever she broke out the tea, I knew she knew this was serious. A moment later she reappeared with a tray laden with milk, sugar, honey, and two big mugs.

Once we had both lightened and sweetened our tea how we each liked it, she sat back in the couch, holding the steaming mug in her hands. My mother had a theory about tea: like laughter, it was good medicine, but unlike laughter, it could calm almost everyone. Handing someone a warm cup of tea was a soothing action in any language. Even you didn't like tea, the pure act of accepting something warm in your hands that you must be careful not to spill had a calming effect. I felt soothed with that warm cup between my hands, despite the fact that I was always too warm, and these days I mostly opted for drinks full of ice cubes.

"Okay," she said. "Shoot."

Once when I was a little girl, maybe six, I broke a beautiful wooden carving of a raven that had belonged to my mother before my parents were married. It was probably worth a small fortune, being original art from a Native artist, and it sat on its own table in our living room. Emily was visiting at the time, and we were running around chasing each other. I slipped on a corner of carpet and toppled the table, sending the carving crashing to the hardwood floor. The break broke right off, and Emily fled the scene. I cradled that shattered bird in my hands and imagined all the trouble I would be in when my mother found out. I couldn't decide which was worse- that she would yell, or cry. I knew she loved that raven, and had seen the care she'd taken with it when she dusted and shined it with oil.

True panic overwhelmed me, and I responded by doing something rash: I went out to my father's workshop, where I was not allowed to go, and used the glue gun I was not allowed to touch to reattach that beak. Then I righted the table and put the carving back on top of it. I felt incredibly clever, but I was terribly nervous for the rest of the afternoon.

My mother was home for perhaps an hour before I couldn't stand it anymore and admitted the entire thing to me. Every moment that I looked at her I felt overwhelming guilt, and I found I couldn't live with that. I was ready for her raised voice, for her disappointment and anger, and for her tears. I had worked myself into such a state of fright that I thought there was even a chance that she might hit me, even though she never had. I was terrified of her in that moment.

Instead, she pulled me into her lap, picked up the carving, and examined the damage with me. I explained how the beak had come to be broken and pointed out where I'd tried to piece it back together, how some parts of it fit back into its own grooves better than others, and I showed her how you could see the little glistening beads of glue if you looked at a certain angle through the crack. She told me she was proud of me for telling the truth, and that she knew it would have been easier for me to go on pretending everything was normal. Then she said that nothing stays perfect forever, and just like for people, things can get injured and hurt, and they don't always heal quite right. She said those things add character, and give something more personality than it had before. She said that she preferred the carving now, because before when she'd looked at it she'd seen a pretty work of art, but now when she looked at it she saw her daughter's honesty and compassion.

The way she'd chosen to parent me that day had given me a gift worth far more than any lesson about not breaking precious things or not lying to your parents. After that, I was never scared of her again.

Now, in the living room, my hands cupped around my steaming mug of tea, I took a deep breath while she waited for me to be ready to say what needed to be said. Finally, I forced myself to speak the words, "The tattoo means something. You're going to find all of this out tomorrow anyway, but I wanted you to hear it from me first, not the council."

I met her warm brown eyes and poured out all the secrets it had been torturing me to keep secret from her. I started at the beginning of my story and told her what the fever had been like for me, finding Seth collapsed on his bed, my fear and confusion about what was happening to him, my terror when it had overtaken me, too, and my anger at my father for keeping us in the dark about what was happening in our own bodies. It was easy to talk to her, and she just listened, nodding occasionally, until I got to the part where my fever broke. I knew now that I had to tell her my real secrets, and she might never look at Seth or me the same way again.

"Mom," I said hesitantly.

"Yes, my love?" she answered warmly, her voice gentle. She took my hand and I squeezed it hard, but I let it go because I didn't want to risk the anguish of what it would feel like for her to pull back from me in horror.

"I need to tell you something else, and it's going to sound crazy. But I need you to believe me for a minute, okay?" She nodded, but I could see the uncertainty in her eyes. I gave her a moment to prepare herself, and then I just said it, "Those stories Dad used to tell us, the ones about how Quileutes used to be shapeshifters… well, it's true. We still can be, if we have the right genes… Dad was descended from one of those shapeshifters. And he passed it down to us… Mom, Seth and I can change into wolves. The fever started it."

I stopped so she could absorb what I'd said so far. She had a very strange expression on her face, like she'd swallowed something down the wrong pipe, or eaten something she'd expected to be sweet and light, but was in reality incredibly spicy.

I think my biggest fear in that moment was that she wouldn't believe me. Or that she would condemn me, as my father had, because I was a girl. I was worried that the council would brainwash her into thinking I was abnormal, as they did, and that she would look on me as a freak. Maybe I wanted to tell her myself mostly for selfish reasons. She was staring off into space a little, a dazed expression on her face; I had no idea what she was thinking.

It became clear she wasn't going to say anything, and I felt my heart clenching in fear. I started talking again, if only to fill the silence, "Mom, you remember that book you used to read me? 'Mama, Do You Love Me?'" I was referring to a little board book she'd read to me when I was very young, about an Inuit girl living in the north with her mother. The little girl asks her mother again and again if she'd still love her if she suddenly became a walrus, or a salmon, or a dog.

"Remember the polar bear one?" I asked. "The little girl wanted to know if her mother would still love her even if she became a polar bear and roared at her. And her mother said that she might be scared, but that the little girl would always be her baby." I heard the tears in my voice at the same moment I felt them gathering in my eyes.

Suddenly, she blinked a couple of times, and really looked at me for the first time since I'd told her. Her mouth opened a little, and I saw her eyes crinkle before she reached out and gathered me up in her arms. She pulled me close to her body, and I inhaled my mother's scent, the most comforting scent I knew of in the whole world. "Oh, baby," she whispered into my ear. "I will _always_ love you- no matter who or what you are. Always."

With those words, I broke down. I cried, sobbed, into her chest, my shoulders heaving, my body shaking and shuddering with an overwhelming mixture of emotions: fear, sadness, and most notably relief. She still loved me. I didn't know yet if she believed me, but she still loved me.

"So the council knows about this?" she asked heavily, after holding me for a long time. Even when she pulled back from me, she only did so far enough that we could look into each other's eyes again. She wiped the tears from my face with her fingertips, as she had for all my childhood, and I knew once and for all that nothing could break a mother's love. I realized that it was like breathing for her, and to stop loving me would have been no easier for her than to suddenly stop requiring oxygen. The comfort that knowledge brought me was immense, and I was so grateful to her for teaching me, time and again, what kind of mother I wanted to be.

She clinked her untouched mug against mine, and we both took a long drink in unison, as though the cups were filled with liquor instead of tea. We both looked at each other and laughed. "Wow," she said, shaking her head slowly from side to side. "And your father? He knew about this?"

Gently, I said, "Yes."

She let out a sigh. "Your father was a proud man," she said. "Tradition and taboos were everything to him. I'm sorry, Leah… I'm sure he must have judged you really harshly over this."

My eyes filled with tears again and I brushed them from my cheeks. "I just can't stand that he died hating me."

The naked shock in her eyes surprised me. "Sweetheart," she whispered cradling my face against her chest. "He didn't hate you."

"But girls aren't supposed to change," I answered. "I'm a freak."

"Oh honey." I could hear in her voice that her heart was breaking for me. "Baby, you're not a freak. You're a pioneer. You think those women who fought for the right to vote have anything on you?"

"Oh, Mom," I groaned. "Even if that was true, that doesn't explain _why."_

Quietly she said, "Honey, since the day your brother was born you've watched over him with a vigilance that rivaled mine. You've always wanted nothing more than to keep him safe and protect him. Are you really surprised that this is no exception?" She smiled warmly at me. "Even biology won't keep you from watching over him. Your teachers always told me you were stubborn… but I knew the truth. You're brave. You know what you want and you go for it. Not even your gender will stop you from doing that."

I had never before heard this version of why I was different- according to my mother, it wasn't because there was something wrong with me, after all, but only the simple truth that I loved my brother and I wanted to keep him safe. In my mother's version, I was truly what we were all meant to be: a protector, not only of the land and the tribe, but also of my family. She believed I had risen out of the mould of my gender for a specific purpose. I was brave, not doomed; loving, not abnormal.

Part of me expected her to ask me to show her evidence for all I had said, to transform in front of her, but she didn't. I slept in her bed that night, her breathing lulling me to sleep as it had when I was a little girl. In the end, she would always be on my side, like a mother should be.

Still, it was hard for me to believe her words, to take them into myself and really feel that they were the truth. I still felt like a freak. I wish I could say I didn't, that after that conversation and my mother's acceptance I was whole again. It helped, but it wasn't enough. Children often find it hard to trust their parents' acceptance, which is why they seek it more from their peers, who are not obligated in the same way. Any good mother will tell her child that she's beautiful, smart, and valuable. It's their job. But I did feel comforted by the knowledge that the council had their opinions, and my mother had hers. They wouldn't sway her against me tomorrow, and I would remain her daughter, intact and unchanged. So much had changed in my life already, so it felt good to know that her love for me wouldn't.

* * *

In the morning, I could feel in my bones that I wasn't going to be able to resist shifting for long. It wasn't something that was easy to control, and I knew from the memories of the others that trying to resist it would only lead to an uncontrolled change, which could be very dangerous. Still, I dreaded the reactions of the others once I did shift and all my dirty laundry was exposed to them. But I knew Paul could be temperamental- volatile, really- and that he wouldn't be able to keep his promise not to change for long.

My mother was already gone to work by the time I woke up, and after I'd risen from her comfortable bed and showered, I dressed in the bare minimum of clothing that I'd started favouring since my change. I walked barefoot out into the woods and secured my clothing to my leg as the others had showed me, as I shifted into my swift, gray wolf form. It bothered me that I was slightly smaller than the others, but I made up for it with speed, and almost none of them could outrun me.

_Hey Leah,_ Jacob's voice bubbled up in my mind almost as soon as I'd shifted. He seemed agitated, and I could see his thoughts were obsessing over Bella Swan. I gathered she'd left home and couldn't be found. I'd barely seen the girl since she moved back to Forks, and even then only in passing, our fathers being friends. Of course, I knew she'd been dating one of the Cullens, which made me a bit disgusted, and I had noticed that though Charlie had come to my father's funeral, she had not. So by this point I'd decided she could pretty much go to hell. But I knew Jake was in love with her; it was sad, really. His thoughts revolved around her so much he might as well have been imprinted on her.

_Where are you?_ I asked him, padding through the underbrush of the forest that ringed our small community. I saw images of Jacob in Olympic National Park, heading back towards the Rez, but I didn't feel much like hanging out beyond the forced mental link, so I headed in the other direction.

_You and Paul?_ he said incredulously.

_Can we not?_ I snapped back, and I felt him withdraw a little from the subject. It was difficult for me to control my temper with all of them at the best of times; it was better when Sam wasn't around, since he always set me off- there was only so much Emily-Emily-Emily mantra I could take in one sitting. But still, I didn't want Jacob's judgment.

_I'm not judging you,_ he said heavily. _I'm just trying to distract myself._

_So where'd she go?_ I asked, entertaining his worries. Seeing as we were both shifted, I was stuck with his thoughts no matter what, so I might as well try to make some friendly conversation.

I could feel his anger seething._ She went to go get her bloodsucking boyfriend back. I tried to stop her._ I saw flashes in his mind of what had happened- one of the females, Alice, had come back, and dragged Bella off with her. I watched Jacob lay it out for her and ask her to stay but she refused, and I felt how much that hurt. Now he was terrified that Edward was going to change her into one of them.

Inwardly, I sighed. _Jacob,_ I said. _If she's stupid enough to make that decision then she deserves the consequences._

Immediately I felt his anger and defensiveness. _She has no idea what she's doing,_ he insisted. _She doesn't know all her options._ I got a flash of Jacob leaning in to kiss Bella, only to be interrupted by a phone call. Poor kid. I felt for him, but I also really didn't appreciate the way that girl treated him. She'd used him as a crutch for the last few months while she'd wallowed in depression and now at the first sign that she could swap him for her leech ex-boyfriend, she dropped him.

_It's not like that,_ Jacob growled, hearing my every thought. I saw through his eyes how that phone call had ended, the conversation that would lead Edward to believe that Bella was dead instead of my father, and the reason she ran off with Alice in the first place. I didn't quite know how to feel about that- part of me was impressed that Jake had stuck it to the tick, but I also felt angry that he'd used my father's death as a tool for his own gain.

_I just wanted him to stay away,_ he said, his voice somewhat apologetic. _I can't stand the idea of him killing her._

I let it go; it wasn't worth it. His intentions were good, he was a good kid, and because of the link I loved him. I forgave him and gave a mental shrug of my shoulders. _I hope she comes back human and we don't have to kill her, _I said sincerely.

The images that flashed through Jacob's mind then frightened me a little. I saw his terror at the idea of having to rip her apart- we would all be naturally driven to do so, and no one knew if that was something he'd be able to resist. I also saw his resolve to leave La Push if it came to that, but personally I didn't know if that would be possible. We had a biological compulsion to stay on this piece of land in the same way we had a biological compulsion to kill vampires.

_She should be back soon,_ he said hopefully, and I got the sense he was trying to comfort himself more than he was trying to convince me. _So we'll just have to wait and see._

_Well, you know we're all here for you, Jacob,_ I told him. It was true, even for me: as much as they could all get on my nerves sometimes even in such a short period of time we had become so bonded to one another. I couldn't hate any of them, not even Sam. Not even Emily.

I had resolved to go over there. Everyone did- her house was like a hangout for the pack. I couldn't imagine how awkward it might be to face her again after I essentially banished her from my life, but seeing her through not only Sam's eyes but also the eyes of the others, I'd grown to miss her. I wanted to see her in person for the first time in what seemed like years, even though I knew it would be a painful reunion.

_She's home now,_ Jacob's voice came gently through my thoughts. _I was just there._

_My mother is joining the council tonight,_ I replied, changing the subject.

_I know,_ he answered with a small smile in his voice. _My dad says there hasn't been a woman on the council in a long time and that Sue will keep everyone on their toes._

Internally, I smirked. _Yeah, well, I guess the Clearwater women like to go where they're not invited,_ I said, and it came out a little more bitterly than I'd intended.

_Leah,_ he said with an obvious sigh. When I refused to answer him and filled my mind with random images to make it clear I didn't want to pursue this line of dialogue, he said_ Well, I'm home now… I was up all night and I'm tired. _I could already seem him picturing his bed with longing.

_Sleep well,_ I said, and his mind withdrew from mine as he made the shift back to human form. Finally alone, I felt like I could really breathe, and I had to admit that despite my resentment of the shift, times like this- when I wasn't having my brain invaded- it could actually be quite peaceful padding softly through the forest on four legs, my ears twitching in every direction toward even the tiniest of sounds. If this was something I could do without consequence and at will, and that didn't bind me to a life of hunting and killing vampires, it might actually be fun. With all those strings attached though, frankly, it wasn't worth it, and I was still resolved to stop shifting as soon as I could figure out how. But at least for now, I took my small pleasures when and where I could.

* * *

Emily had always been crafty and artsy, and her house certainly reflected that. Even from the outside, it was funky and creative, and she'd turned what was basically a small wooden cabin into a cozy home. I could see why the boys liked to hang out here, though I think most of the reason had to do with food and all of their brainwashed fondness for Emily, thanks to Sam's memories and loving thoughts about her. You could only resist the hypnotic effect of Sam's constant droning list of her best qualities before you started believing that she was the most wonderful person on the face of the planet. I'm sure she just loved all the attention.

I shifted to human form and dressed on the outskirts of her property, since appearing naked on her doorstep wasn't quite the kind of impression I wanted to make. I could hear the waves crashing on the shore of First Beach, which was a very short walk from her doorstep, through the trees and around some rocks. She had gotten an amazing deal on this house, and I knew the council had helped her out. I guess there was some kind of clause in the werewolf contract that guaranteed that their imprints were taken care of. I also knew she was making money making and selling jewelry, something she'd always talked about doing when we were kids, and I also knew that the council gave her money every month, partly to cover the exorbitant grocery bills that came along with feeding a ravenous pack of werewolves virtually every day. Costco had become her best friend.

Of course, Emily had been at my father's funeral the day before, but I had been a zombie and barely remembered her presence, let alone the awkward way she'd embraced me afterwards. This would be the first true meeting we had since I'd found out about her and Sam and kicked her out of my house. I was irritated that I actually felt nervous about it.

All at once I regretted coming here, and I was about to turn around and leave when the front door opened and Emily came out, holding a giant earthenware pot housing a large umbrella tree. It looked like she could barely lift it, and sure enough, as soon as she'd stepped over the threshold of the house and out onto the veranda, she set the heavy pot down with a thump that bent her entire body double, a move that was obviously unintentional. I watched her strain to try to pick it up again.

Letting out a huff of frustration, I walked over to her and slapped her hands away, hoisting the giant pot into my own arms with ease. I hadn't doubled my weight in muscle since the transformation or grown a six-pack as all the boys had, but I was much stronger and in better shape than I'd ever been. Part of that was due simply to the amount of time we spent running through the woods, as well as the high temperature of our bodies that burned through calories almost faster than we could consume them.

"Where do you want this?" I asked Emily's shocked face.

She recovered quickly. "Over here," she said, hopping down the steps and into the mostly dirt yard out front. I followed her where she led me to a small flowerbed, half planted and half unplanted, which had obviously been constructed recently. Next to it was a small paved area where a few other pots were sitting holding various plants. I set mine down beside them and angled it so the pattern on the side looked good with the other pots, knowing how she liked things to be just so.

I turned and saw that Emily was looking at the arrangement of pots with a tiny smile on her face. Her eyes moved to mine and she said, "You must be hungry. I just made brownies." Without waiting for me to respond, she turned and headed back to the house, forcing me to follow her. Inside, the walls bore various artworks, some that Emily had obviously done herself and some that I recognized from when I'd spent time at her house when we were kids. She'd obviously brought all her stuff from her parents' house since she'd moved in here.

"What did your family think of you moving down here permanently?" I asked as Emily made a beeline for the stove, stirring some bubbling concoction in a huge pot that smelled amazing- some kind of stew. I sat down at the counter behind her.

"They were fine with it," she answered. I heard a slight shake of nervousness in her voice. Emily had two brothers, one older and one younger, and she had always been the free spirit of our family. Her older brother was already married with two kids, and the younger was still in high school. Her parents probably thought her jumping reservations to shack up with her cousin's boyfriend was just another oh-so-Emily move in a long line of crazily endearing behaviour. Unlike Emily and I, who had always been so similar in personality at least, my mother and her cousin were very different people.

Emily grabbed a knife from one of her drawers and cut into a pan of brownies, giving me a generous slice and taking a much smaller one for herself. She sat down across from me and gave me a wry smile. "I, for one, still have to watch my figure."

"Yeah, as if you have to worry about getting dumped because you're fat or something," I countered, knowing Sam would stay with her no matter what she looked like. Emily fell silent and I instantly regretted my words. I hadn't come here to fight; it was hard for that not to be my first instinct, but it wasn't really what I wanted. And I knew it definitely wasn't what Emily wanted.

"Leah," she said, taking a huge breath. "I just want to say… I know I can never apologize enough for what's happened, but-"

I held my hand up. "Let me stop you right there," I said, and let out a long, heavy sigh. I looked at my cousin; I looked at her ragged face that would never fully heal, I looked at the guilt in her eyes, the sorrow and the remorse that we'd come to this place that neither of us had ever counted on being. I could fight with her forever and hate her forever and nothing would ever change. She had been as helpless as I'd been, both caught in the undertow of Sam's need.

While it was hard, with the link, for me to stop myself from constantly lashing out at Sam, Emily's mind was silent to me. No matter how well we might know each other, we would never cross that line of knowing _too_ much about one another. It felt like a burden lifting off me to have that guarantee.

"Practically every day I have to listen to Sam thinking about you," I said softly. "I don't want to have to talk about it too."

After a long moment she said softly, "I get that. But Leah, can you ever forgive me?"

I sighed. "I've forgiven you already in some ways… maybe in other ways I never will. But I miss you." It was hard for me to admit that, but I forced myself to say it.

Her eyes filled with tears. "God, I miss you _so_ much," she said. She put her hands on my shoulders and squeezed. "I know this is like the most god-awful situation, but I want it to work. Ever since I heard about you changing, I've been feeling so sad… I know in another life you would have cried on my shoulder about it. I kept hoping you'd come hang out with the others, but when you never showed…" Her tears spilled over and rolled down her cheeks, the ones on the left side of her face trailing in straight lines towards her chin, the ones on the right side of her face catching in the crags and valleys of her scars. "I'm just really glad you're here. And I don't want things to be weird… we can figure something out."

I nodded, reaching up to take one of her hands and giving it a squeeze. She squeezed back, hard, smiling at me through her tears. "It'll be okay, Em," I said, and I was surprised that I actually meant those words. I took a big bite of my brownie and let out a sigh of approval- she was, and always had been, an amazing cook. Emily grinned at me, but the expression faded almost as soon as it had come over her face, and I turned in my seat to follow her gaze.

Sam stood in the doorway, looking very uncomfortable and uncertain about what he should do next.

I stood up. "I should go," I said.

"Leah…" Sam started, but I shook my head. He insisted, "For God's sake, can't we even sit around and eat together?" The accusation in his voice was obvious: this was my fault, I was the one being difficult, why couldn't I just let it all go?

"Fuck you," I snapped an answer at him. I saw his eyes darken a little and I glared right back, turning on my heel and heading for the door.

"Stop," Emily's voice rang out firmly, and I did, turning to her in surprise. Was she going to lecture me about being a bitch? That really wasn't going to go over well. I turned my face to the wall and clenched and unclenched my fists several times, to keep my temper in check and prevent myself from shifting in her living room.

"You should go," I heard her say.

In exasperation, I threw up my hands and said, "Then why did you stop me?"

"Not you," she said, drawing my eyes back in her direction. She was looking right at Sam, and he had a shocked, pained expression on his face.

"Me?" he asked doubtfully.

"Yes," she said firmly. "I want to have some time alone with my cousin. She's obviously not comfortable with you being here, so you need to leave. I'll see you later tonight."

I could tell he didn't like this one bit. I could imagine how much it must have hurt his pride not to be chosen, and I couldn't help a tiny, smug smile coming over my face, but I forced it down immediately. I didn't want to be that kind of person, but I appreciated that Emily was putting me first.

Sam's eyes flitted to me, then back to Emily. I knew he couldn't really refuse her- imprinting made it next to impossible for him to do something that went against her wishes. I could see that he wanted to go to her and kiss her or hold her for a moment, just to reassure himself that she was still his, but her body language made it clear that she would not accept that. Finally, with one more glance in my direction, he left the house again.

"You didn't have to do that, Emily," I said softly, surprised at how touched I was by her gesture. It actually almost made me want to cry, that she had acknowledged me as the wronged party and prioritized my needs above the needs of the man who was devoted to her to the point of insanity.

"Yes, I did," she answered simply, and sat back down again. I reclaimed my seat and my brownie, and she said, "Stay all day. We'll hang out and paint each other's toenails and watch some stupid movie or something. If it was night I'd suggest a skinny dip- we haven't done that in ages and we do have direct access to a beach, after all."

I couldn't help but smile a little. That had always been Emily's favourite pastime, though she'd only succeeded in dragging me with her on a handful of occasions, and often I'd left my underwear on, prompting whining from her that I 'wasn't playing right.'

"Okay fine, no skinny dipping," she relented. "But the rest?"

"Fine," I said, throwing up my hands in resignation. It reminded me of how she'd hauled me into the real world when all I'd wanted to do was stay in bed forever, after Sam broke up with me.

If there was one thing I knew about my cousin, it was that she could be as stubborn as I was, and that was one of the many reasons we'd always gotten along. Once Emily set her mind on something, it was going to happen, and now that I had given her an in, she was going to take it and run with it, and I was pretty sure she wasn't going to let me out of my role as her best friend ever again. And, since I was trying to make an effort to be honest with myself, I had to admit that I didn't want her to. Considering that my new role in life isolated me from almost everyone I could have a potentially normal relationship with, I couldn't really afford to be choosy. Still I worried about how possible that really was, considering everything else.

But if Emily wanted to drag me back into our friendship and force everyone to accept it, who was I to be the only one to argue?

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**Author's Note:** Sorry again for the long update time- school is unreal right now. Hopefully some of you have stuck with me... I'll look forward to your reviews! Thanks! :-)


	15. Chapter 14

**Author's Note: **Anyone still out there? I really hope so! My terribly hectic schooling is my excuse... but I will try my best to update more frequently!

* * *

We lay in the cradle of a hammock that Emily had strung up under the eaves on one side of the house. A gentle breeze swayed us side to side as Emily held my right foot in her hand and painted my nails an obnoxious coral pink that went with neither my skin colour nor my clothing tastes. But I knew it would soothe her, so I let her. Her feet were tucked into my shoulder, their nails painted the same colour, overlaid with tiny hand-drawn flowers, what looked like pansies in whites, purples, blues and yellows. I would draw the line at letting her do that to me.

"Do you still paint?" I asked her, the first time I'd spoken since Sam had left us alone in the house. She'd coaxed me back to my brownie, let me finish it, and then led me by the hand to this hammock, toppling me into it with her own body weight when I'd protested. The nail polish had been tucked into her pocket already, and once she'd discovered it, there was no escaping my fate.

"Yeah, but not as much as I used to," she said. "It seems like I'm in the kitchen half the time." She squinted at my toes, surveying her work. I liked that her attention was directed elsewhere: it meant I could look at her without having to actually make eye contact.

"I never saw you as a den mother type," I admitted.

Emily let out a small laugh. "You and me both, sister," she agreed. "I thought I'd be in Europe by now, being romanced by some French guy named Jacques."

I couldn't help but smile a little. "I forgot that was your big dream- Europe. You never could wait to get out of Washington."

She shrugged. "It wasn't that. I just wanted to have adventures. I never got how you wanted to just stay here and have some babies and settle down. I mean, sure, you were going to go away for college, but you were always going to come back. I wanted to visit every country on Earth." She smiled a little at my toes. "You and I were always pretty different that way, though, weren't we? I mean, how many boyfriends have I had?"

"Not to mention girlfriends," I teased.

"That was one time! _God, _will you ever let me live that down?" she said, scrunching up her nose playfully at me.

"Probably not," I answered lightly, but I could already feel my own apprehension at where this conversation was headed. The last thing I wanted to talk about was Sam, so I changed the subject to avoid it. "So are you sad that you're never going to get to do those things now?"

"It might not be never," she said hesitantly, but I could tell she really didn't believe that. She returned the cap to the nail polish and set it down on the ground beside us, then carefully moved my foot, picking up the other one. But instead of starting to paint, she just cradled my foot in her hand and played absently with my toes. It almost tickled, but not quite. "It's just weird," she said finally.

"What is?"

She looked at me with a mixture of pain and pity, and I knew this conversation was going exactly where I hadn't wanted it to go. Emily said, "I figured I would get married one day- you know, when I was like thirty or something… but I'm twenty years old, Leah."

"You could have said no," I answered defensively. "When he proposed, you could have turned him down. It's not like he would have worshipped you any less." I could hear the bitterness in my own voice.

"I know," she said softly. "It's just… what's the point? We all know it's going to happen, so I guess, when he asked, the only answer I could really see was yes."

"But you could have said no," I insisted. "You could have told him you wanted to take a break for a couple of years, that you wanted to go to Europe or ride through the Australian outback on a kangaroo, or hook up with people on every continent, and he would have been here that whole time, waiting for you." I resented her freedom, her assurance, and her guaranteed destiny.

I was surprised to find tears in my cousin's eyes when I looked at her. She was shaking her head. "But I couldn't really, Leah," she said. "I couldn't do any of those things knowing that he was waiting."

Shrugging, I rolled my eyes a little, making it clear I had no sympathy for her whining. "Whatever, Em," I said. "If you're looking for a shoulder to cry on about how horrible it is to have Sam Uley's unconditional love, I am really the wrong shoulder."

"I know," she said quietly, glancing away from me. I could tell she still wanted to talk about it, though. Finally she said, "I love him. I do. I don't want you to think I don't. But… it's all so predictable. That's never who I was. I miss the thrill- the unexpected. The uncertainty of meeting someone who you feel that spark with, but who you also worry might not reciprocate. I miss obsessing about what I might wear or say, or what I might do, and what he might say or do and what that might mean. With Sam… it doesn't matter what I look like, what I say or don't say, what I do or don't do- he'll still love me. In the end, it's all the same to him. I'm just… perfect."

"Yeah, it sounds awful," I said sarcastically, but in spite of myself I was sort of understanding where she was coming from. Emily had always been a free spirit: she had thrilled in the adventure of life. Sam's love was a beautiful prison, steady and unbreakable. I could see how someone with her character might find that overwhelming, and because my cousin was also a sweet person, she couldn't take advantage of it, either. So she was stuck between wanting more out of life and feeling guilty for that desire.

I really looked at her. The scars were the most obvious thing that had changed her since she'd come to La Push such a relatively short time ago, but there were other changes, too. Her hair had gone a bit limp; she'd lost weight. Not a lot, but enough, and Emily loved food, so I knew that was a sign of something. Maybe the dreamy picture of happy perfection that Sam painted in his mind of their relationship wasn't true. I knew they didn't fight; I would have seen that. But maybe Emily was nurturing a secret heartache, what she was trying to explain to me now. And how could she possibly say that to Sam? How could she ask him for the one thing he could never give her? For the first time I saw how cruel it was that imprinting only worked one way.

"You're the only person who could ever understand," she whispered. I saw a single tear escape her left eye and roll down her cheek. "There is literally no one else I could ever talk to about this, Leah. I know it's not a fair place to put you in."

My gut reaction was to retort something angrily, but I forced the urge down. "I just had no idea," I admitted. "I only see Sam's side."

When she smiled, it looked strange because her eyes were so full of tears. "I don't want you to think I don't love him," she repeated her earlier words to me. "I just wish I hadn't found him so young."

I couldn't agree. Suddenly, I imagined myself at thirty years old, married to Sam, one child at my side and another on the way, and Emily coming to visit. I saw him imprinting then, when that one moment could destroy an entire family and not just me. For the first time, I was grateful that it had happened when and how it did. Emily was related to me: it would have been inevitable that he would have met her eventually. I realized now that imprinting was like a ticking time bomb under someone's skin.

I wondered, not for the first time, if there was a person out there somewhere who would elicit a similar reaction in me. Who would I be then? Sam had changed so profoundly because of it that it terrified me to imagine a similar reprioritization in my own life. I just hoped that if there was someone out there for me to imprint on, they stayed out of my way for a few years, until Seth was grown up and could more easily endure my abandonment.

"I told my mother about me and Seth," I said. "Last night. So you can talk to her about it." I knew Emily and my mother were not nearly as close as she and I, and my mother wasn't exactly an impartial shoulder to cry on, either, but she was more than me. I couldn't be there for Emily like that: not now. Maybe not ever. She had to understand that. But I didn't want her to be alone in this, either.

She nodded, and picked up the bottle of nail polish again, starting on my left foot this time. A comfortable silence settled over us once more, and we sat there for a long time not speaking a word to one another. As kids, we used to spend whole afternoons like that: those moments were some of our closest. A truly comfortable silence was a gift that few could give, but it had always come easily to us.

After a long time, Emily said quietly, mostly to my toes it seemed, "I got a birth control implant. I still have power over some things."

I have to admit that I felt incredibly relieved when she said that. I knew that kind of birth control lasted for years, and even though she could remove it anytime she changed her mind, it was obvious that a baby was the last thing Emily wanted right now. It would simply be one more thing to tie her down, and I could see that my cousin wanted to maintain at least the idea of potential freedom, that she could walk away at any time, if she had to. But I knew she never would and so did she.

"You know, the legends say it's possible to learn control," I said. "It's possible to figure out how to stop shifting."

"And then what happens?" she asked, looking up in interest.

"Everything starts up again. Aging… everything."

"I wish it was like in the movies," Emily joked. "I wish Sam could just bite me and I could run around with all of you."

"No you don't," I said flatly.

"So is that what you want?" she asked. "To stop?"

I nodded. "That's the plan, yeah. I want a normal life… children… old age. Death."

"What about Seth?"

I hesitated. "Right now in his life I think he thinks this is pretty much the coolest thing to happen since sliced bread."

Emily laughed. "Well, that's Seth. What isn't he enthusiastic about?"

"I know," I answered. "It just scares me. I worry about him all alone, when Mom and me are gone."

"He'll be much older then," she pointed out.

"Yeah, but he'll look twenty forever, max," I countered. "And Seth at twenty will probably still look fifteen."

"You don't know that for sure. I've been looking a lot into the legends and asking people lots of questions about what they know- the answer is basically next to nothing, Leah. I don't think even the council ever thought this would happen again."

I shrugged. "Well, it did."

"Thanks for that revelation," she teased me. More gently she said, "You can't look after him forever."

I nodded. "Yeah, I know that. At a certain point, I'll have to just cross my fingers and hope for the best."

"When's that going to be?" she asked curiously.

I gave her a half-smirk. "I'll tell you when I see it."

She finished my foot and set it aside carefully. "Fair enough," she said.

It was getting dark, and I wanted more than anything to avoid another confrontation with Sam. "Well," I said. "Now that my toes are appropriately hideous, I'd better get out of here before you start on my fingers, too."

"I wonder if it'll pop off when you shift," she mused. "Or if it'll still be there when you change back."

I hadn't thought of that; it actually intrigued me, too. "I don't know," I admitted. I tried to think about it for a moment: no one in the pack had dyed hair, and of course none wore makeup because they were all boys and I hadn't worn makeup to speak of in over a year. So I had no idea. Our tattoos came back every time, but that's because they were scars. It wasn't the same.

Emily tumbled out of the hammock with me, the two of us finding our feet at the last second. "Change," she said. At my incredulous look, she begged, "Oh please, let me see? I want to see if you have painted claws!"

"If I do, you have to get some nail polish remover and take it off immediately," I groaned. I found myself shy under her gaze, so I made her turn around as I removed my clothing, piling it into her blindly outstretched hands. Finally nude, I wasted no time and shifted into my wolf form. It was always a strange feeling, that split-second where I was sure my body would come apart, but it didn't.

_Twenty bucks says it stays on,_ Quil's voice entered my mind, immediately reading my thoughts and figuring out what was going on.

_No way it'll stay on,_ Embry's replied. _I'll take that bet._

I looked down at my toes; long, sharp claws emerged from the end of each one, as smooth and mottled black as ever. I heard Quil's groan almost at the same time I heard Embry's glee, but I ignored them both. Instead, I nudged Emily's shoulder with my nose, and she turned towards me with a huge grin on her face. She glanced down at my toes and shrugged, then looked at me. "It's so cool," she said softly, "how your eyes are still exactly the same." Mostly to make her laugh, I rolled them for her, and she giggled. She reached out and touched my head, and I lowered it a little, letting her scratch me behind the ears and feel the soft thickness of my fur. "Do you like that?"

I shrugged my shoulders a little and butted my head into her hand, making her giggle again. Then I jerked my head in the direction of the woods, indicating that I was leaving. I offered her my leg, where she tied my clothes securely, and I pulled my lips back over my teeth just enough to give the sense of a smile. Emily threw her arms around my neck and held me close.

"I'm so glad you came," she said into the ruff of my neck. I tucked my chin around her in the semblance of a hug and then she let go. Giving her a wag of my tail as a goodbye, I bounded off into the forest.

_It would have been so cool if it had stayed,_ Quil lamented now that my moment with Emily was over.

_Yeah, well it didn't, and you owe me twenty bucks,_ Embry answered cheerfully. I could already see all the things he was planning to spend the money on.

_No way, dude, we didn't shake on it,_ Quil protested.

_Oh, come on!_ Embry protested. _Shake on it? How exactly could we have done that when you're like ten miles from me? Leah!_ he whined.

_Quil,_ I answered sternly. _Pay up._

Again I got the distinct impressions of Quil's groans of protest and Embry's happy satisfaction.

_Want to come running?_ Embry offered politely, but I could see that neither he nor Quil really wanted me to, and neither did I.

_Just heading home,_ I answered, ignoring their obvious relief. _In fact, I'm already there._ The incredible speed I could run at was another perk of being a wolf: I was home in seconds when a drive would have taken much longer. Without even waiting for a response from either of them, I shifted back to human form on the outskirts of my family's property and dressed hurriedly before heading towards the house.

The immediate silence was like a switch being turned off inside my head. I was alone, but not just that… I was lonely. I could admit that because no one could hear me. It was obvious that no one was home, so I used my key and stood just inside the threshold for a long moment, breathing in the cedar scent of the walls that had framed my home since birth. When had it stopped feeling like home? Was it when Sam left me? When I first shifted? When my father died? The place was upsetting to me now, the bad memories it held threatening to drown out any safety I had ever felt cradled in the embrace of this wood and glass structure.

I sighed and stepped outside again. I set off away from my house, taking the long path through the woods that still wasn't particularly long. Not to the pair of muscular legs I now owned, anyway… besides, the monotony of my footsteps and the quiet rustle of birds and tree limbs allowed me to think of nothing, which was welcome. I let my mind drift to silence, so by the time I arrived at Paul's place I was surprised to find myself standing in front of the small green trailer he called home. I'd never been there before, but I knew the look and layout of it by heart from Paul's memories. It was nothing to speak of, a meager little place that gave him a reprieve from his parents' home. They weren't abusive, nothing you could put your finger on, but his father especially had an oppressive presence. It was hard to live with, hard for all of us.

I knocked on the door. He opened it, sleepy-eyed and clad only in boxers, and it was then that I remembered that he'd been out patrolling the night before. It only would have been a few hours since he'd gotten home.

"Sorry," I said by way of greeting.

"Leah?" he answered, rubbing sleep from his eyes as he registered my presence on his front stoop.

"I was just going for a walk," I tried. "Thought I'd say hey."

"Hey," he said, his lips curling up in just the hint of a little wry smile. He held the door open a bit more. "Do you want to come in?"

I eyed that door, open just wide enough to allow me to slip inside the dark room. I could smell that room even outside in the cool, clean air; it wasn't a bad smell, just the typical smell of a teenage boy that often overtook Seth's room until my mother threatened him good-naturedly and he cleaned up. Paul's room was a bit mustier, though, a bit different than Seth's, and I knew it was because I recognized his particular scent on some subconscious, instinctual level now, because of what had transpired between us.

We both knew what would happen if I went through that door. It was why Paul was looking at me with that small, knowing smile, why he was patiently waiting. We both knew this was my choice, and that he represented a doorway as clear as the one he stood in now. I could step through it and leave all my worries outside, or I could go home. Did I know what I was doing? I had promised Seth I would try to avoid this, and I had found it difficult to look in the mirror after what Paul and I had done in the woods. I tried to blame it on my hormones, which had become elevated in abnormal ways since my first shift, but I knew that was only a tiny factor. Paul was an escape, but more than that he was an escape that was uncomplicated. Safe.

I stood there for another moment, and then I walked through the door.


	16. Author's Note

Author's Note:

I'm sure you've all rushed over here hoping for an update and I wish I could deliver that for you.

Unfortunately my house was broken into and my laptop was stolen, so I have not had access to a computer for some time. I'm writing this from the computer lab at my university, but obviously due to time demands from my coursework and clinical placements, it's not feasible for me to write here as well.

The loss of my laptop has been devastating as my entire life is on it, as well as some unpublished chapters of this story, my other Twiligt fanfic, "Rebirth," and lots of other writings. I am so saddened to have lost not only those chapters, but the vessel for my continued creativity and ability to update these stories for you. There have also been some other personal issues in my life, and so there has been a lot weighing on me since the beginning of this year.

I cannot afford to buy a new computer right now, but I hope I will eventually be able to do so. Until then, consider my stories to be on a sad hiatus. I'm happy to know through reviews and private messages that people are still interested and missing my stories. I look forward to the day that I can continue writing!

Thanks very much,  
Ashantai


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